Dani Moreno finished 5th in the Grand Prix Industria Commercio e Artigianato di Prato (UCI 1.1). The race ended with a sprint of a select group of 40 riders including all eight Team Katusha riders. The victory was for Sonny Colbrelli (Bardiani CSF), who was also the winner one day earlier of the Memorial Marco Pantani.

“The team worked hard for me, they did everything to keep the group together and let me do the sprint. Unfortunately I was boxed in at the last corner. I am no sprinter but I hoped for a better result than a 5th place. Anyway this race showed that my condition and the shape of all our selected riders for Ponferrada is good,” said Dani Moreno.

Team director Claudio Cozzi says the team is doing great and especially the riders competing for the World Cup later this month.

“Indeed the Ponferrada riders did a marvelous job today. Before the race they rode training for 2 hours. Afterwards they did some extra 40 minutes. In the end Chernetckii, Trofimov, Caruso, Rodriguez, Losada and Moreno did 264 kilometers today! Moreover they were active in the race as well. When a group of 11 riders was caught at ten kilometers from the finish, all eight of our riders (the six mentioned above plus Vorganov and Silin) were present and they were very active in the final kilometers,” added Team Director Claudio Cozzi.

The eleven rider break of the day included Eduard Vorganov. The group went away on the first climb of the Circuito del Carmignano, reaching a maximum gap of 5 minutes and were caught just in the finale of the race.

Earlier in the day, before the start, Joaquim Rodríguez received the "Premio Franco Ballerini", the Italian Trophy for best international rider of the season. Rodríguez was chosen by the Italian Sports Journalists Association as best rider in 2012 and 2013. The Premio Franco Ballerini has been awarded since 2010. Earlier winners were Fabian Cancellara and Cadel Evans.