Giro Toscana - Mélanie Briot: "it's going to be tough with the hot temperatures"
The Giro Toscana will be the first Italian race contested by the Arkéa Pro Cycling Team this season.
“It’s going to be an intense race this week, made all the more difficult by the high temperatures forecast. I like this kind of undulating profile, where you have to get a feel for the race and make the right move. I’m going to do everything I can to help place my leaders as well as possible, because they’re on a course that suits them and they have a real chance of picking up a good result.”
“The Giro Toscana consists of a 2 kilometre prologue followed by 3 stages that are fairly similar, flat in the first part and then hilly as the finish approaches. On paper, the final stage has the most undulating profile, which will suit the hard-hitters. Our trump cards will be Maaike and Megan, who are generally at ease on this kind of terrain and can aim for a stage win, but also why not a good overall classification. This will be their comeback race. We can also count on Anastasiya. With her background as a track racer, the prologue may suit her, and for the rest of the race we can rely on her ability to read the race and put it to good use for her team-mates, as this is a race without earphones. Finally, the last factor to take into account will be the weather: temperatures will be close to 40°C, which will put our bodies to the test. It’s a bit of an unknown because we haven’t had to deal with that yet this season.”