Eddie Dunbar has expressed his delight at winning his first race as a professional cyclist and said the important thing was to take his win at Coppi e Bartali and build on it.
But he said his victory in Italy today, after five stages of racing, would not change the fact he is fully committed to his team.
He said all of the Ineos Grenadiers riders had helped him to achieve the overall win, name checking all of them – Ethan Hayter, Salvatore Puccio, Geraint Thomas, Cameron Wurf and Laurens De Plus – for the assistance they gave him and Ben Tulett.
While Dunbar took home the biggest prize Tulett, aged just 20 years, won stage 3, was 2nd overall and also claimed the young rider classification. Hayter won stage 2 and the points classification and Ineos Grenadiers also claimed the team prize.
The only thing missing for Dunbar was a stage win. But that mattered little as his two 2nd places on stages 1 and 3, combined with the fact he was by far the strongest climber in the race, means he can come away from this race very much looking forward to the rest of the season.
“I’m going to enjoy the next few days and take it all in I’m just very grateful to the team,” Dunbar said. “They were all super all week and they backed to me today. I’m just happy I could finish it off and repay them with the victory. It’s important now for me to kick on from here and keep progressing
“I’m always motivated. I’ll always give 100 per cent no matter where it is; what race it is, or who it’s for – for myself or my team. They always get 110 per cent from me and that’s not going to change with this victory.”
Dunbar said the team had not only ridden very well to help him and young team mate Ben Tulett – who were the protected riders today as they were 1st and 2nd overall – but also knew exactly how to handle having the race lead within the team.
“I think we proved from the first few stages that we had the strongest team here and Ineos are fairly experienced when they have a leader’s jersey… how to put the correct strategy in place. And we did that today so it was perfect,” said a clearly delighted Dunbar.
“Cam (Wurf) rode very well today and then Salva (Puccio) and Laurens (De Plus) took it up and they rode super as well. We kept it under control and we had G (Thomas) and Ethan (Hayter) as well for the second to last lap. They brought us into the last lap and then it was just up to me and Ben to control the GC guys.”
“We only really had two guys to watch in Simon Carr and Hirschi and, yeah, I think we rode the perfect race really. We let the breakaway go (today) and that took the stress away from bonus seconds. It was a super team performance and I’m very grateful to every single one of them.”
