Pietermaritzburg. BMW Brand Ambassador Alessandro Zanardi
(ITA) concluded the 2017 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships
in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, by winning his tenth world title.
The third competition for him on the schedule at this event was the
team relay on Sunday. Zanardi and his team-mates Paolo Cecchetto and
Luca Mazzone, forming the Italian national team, dominated the race
and successfully defended their world title.
The team relay was held over nine laps of a 1.09 kilometre track
(overall distance 9.8 kilometres). The Italian trio lived up to the
role of being the favourite. Zanardi, Cecchetto and Mazzone controlled
the action and were unthreatened on their way to the gold medal. In
the end, they completed the distance in a time of 16:31.734 minutes
and had an advantage of six seconds over the USA’s second placed team.
In the three Pietermaritzburg competitions he took part in, Zanardi
claimed two world titles, in the time trial and the team relay, as
well as a silver medal in the road race.
“I am extremely happy and joyful about winning another gold medal, my
tenth overall,” said Zanardi. “I am also very happy as we broke a
record as the Italian para-cycling team and won more gold medals at
this event than ever before. It is fantastic for the entire team.”
“If I sum up the event from my personal view: it was great,” Zanardi
continued. “What can I say? I claimed two more gold medals. In the
road race, I ‘only’ finished second, but it was very close and to see
that I am still this competitive at my age is kind of remarkable. I
have to be proud of that – and now I try to recover a little bit
because I have some other very, very important events waiting for me.”
There is, however, not much time for Zanardi to rest as these
next events will be as soon as later this month: two long-distance
triathlons. In two weeks’ time, he will tackle the event in Pula,
Croatia (17th September), and on 30th September,
he will contest the triathlon in Barcelona (ESP), one of the
highlights of the year for him.