NamibiaSport

Namibian cyclist Dan Craven came second in the 136km Trofeo Salvatore Morucci race which took place just north of Rome last Sunday.



It was Craven’s sixth top five finish in his past ten races and came against some strong competition which included several cyclists of Russia’s national team and other professional cyclists from Italy.

Craven soon broke away from the leading peleton with about 15 other cyclists. At the halfway stage the leaders started thinning out as the cyclists hit some steep climbs, and when they reached one summit, Craven found himself amongst the leading four cyclists.

One cyclist dropped off the pace and when they went into the final climb Craven was battling it out with Fabio Taborre of Italy and Pavel Kochetkov of the Russian national team.

With about a kilometre remaining, Taborre managed to break away and although Craven did his best, he couldn’t haul him in.

“Try as I might there was no closing that gap, so all I could do was go as hard as possible for the last kilometer and sprint up the brutally steep finish to grab a very nice second place,” Craven told Namibia Sport.

Taborre won the race in a time of 3 hours 29 minutes 41 seconds, Craven finished second, 16 seconds behind, while Kochetkov came third 31 seconds back.

Craven told Namibia Sport he would now prepare for the World Time Trial Championships which takes place in northern Italy on September 25.
“After the World Time Trial Championships I will have one more race on September 30 and then I will come home to do the Tour de Windhoek and the Namibian Cycle Classic. I’d also like to participate in the African Championships in Casablanca, Morocco on November 7-9, but we will have to wait and see if we can raise funding for that,” he said.