CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious rider Finlay Pickering took the blue jersey yesterday for the king of the mountain after the first stage of the 48th Tour of the Alps, which got underway in Italy.
The five-stage elite men’s road race is part of the 2025 calendar of the Union Cycliste Internationale Pro Series.
Pickering secured the blue jersey – usually a polka dot jersey in other elite road races held worldwide – after topping the king of mountain rankings with 10 points. Davide Bais of Team Polti VisitMalta followed with eight points, while Jefferson Alexander Cepeda of EF Education-EasyPost and Andrew August of Ineos Grenadiers had six points apiece.
Pickering ranked 39th at the end of the 148.5-kilometre stage, which began and finished in the northern Italian commune of San Lorenzo Dorsino. Teammates Damiano Caruso and Antonio Tiberi, both from Italy, were Bahrain Victorious’ best finishers on the day, taking 18th and 19th place for the stage. Croatian Fran Miholjevic was 62nd, Portuguese Afonso Eulalio 66th, and Finn Kasper Borremans 77th.
With his performance, Pickering also placed third on the points rankings for the race’s red jersey, and was eighth in the best young rider standings for the white jersey.
Bahrain Victorious were sixth after stage one in the teams’ rankings, more than two minutes from leaders VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane.
The 48th Tour of the Alps continues today with the second stage, covering 178km and starting from Mezzolombardo before ending in Sterzing.
&uuid=(email))