In the final stage of the Tour of Slovenia, Argentinian riders Maximiliano Richeze finished 2nd in the bunch sprint on the cobbled road in Novo Mesto.

As opposed to yesterday, the bunch rode under the sun and it helped the riders to animate the race with many attacks, which were all neutralized during the first hour thanks to the hard work by sprint teams. LAMPRE-MERIDA also gave its support even though they were without Chun Kai Feng who  did not start because of knee tendonitis.

Only after 50km a 6-rider breakaway escaped from the peloton and the action was neutralized with 26 km to go, also thanks to LAMPRE-MERIDA who led the chase. No other attacks were possibile because of the high speed of the bunch until the final sprint in which Maximilano Richeze was beaten by Slovenian Marko Kump, finishing 2nd like in 2013 in the same finish in Novo Mesto.

LAMPRE-MERIDA was in the top positions of the final overall classification too: Diego Ulissi was 5th (+14") and Polanc 8th (+44").

" Richeze came close to success. It would have added value to the good results that the team have taken here in Slovenia," said sports director Orlando Maini. "The duo Ferrari-Richeze still worked well after the good performance theydelivered in the Giro. Today they were again great to enter the final corner first but they were not able to march Kump's comeback.

"We had good signals from Ulissi who is very competitive as always. Polanc has proven to be a growing rider with a great potential. Koshevoy and Cattaneo did well, thus getting important race days after a recovery period due to physical problems,"