BORA – ARGON 18 rider Jose Mendes made himself a special present on his 30th birthday. The Portuguese rider finished the Giro del Trentino on the sixth place overall after he scored another 10th place in the final stage. With this result, Mendes continues what he proved already at the Criterium International, a race that he finished on 5th place lately.

Today’s final stage covered 162 kilometers on the way from Male to Cles. Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) won the sprint from a leading trio. He relegated David Arroyo (Caja Rural) and Fabio Duarte (Colombia) to the podium places. Richie Porte (Sky) secured the overall win of the stage race. Cesare Benedetti rounded off a great team performance at the Giro del Trentino. After the 27-years old Italian wore the leader jersey, he also won the sprint jersey at the end of his home tour.

“We exceeded our own expectations by far with winning the opening stage, the sprint jersey and securing the sixth place overall. That was an excellent tour for us and the team worked really well together. We can look back to some very successful days. These results make us optimistic for the next races. The guys are all in a very good condition and of course we want to turn this into another top results”, Sport Director Enrico Poitschke summarizes the Giro del Trentino.

"We want to point out the strong performance of Cesare today. After he was in the break-away group yesterday already, he went again today. It’s a great that he was thus able to secure the sprint classification and the red jersey here in his home region. And we as a team are of course quite content with it, too“, Potschke concluded.