"A not very human decision": UAE won in Italy, but Scaroni voiced his frustration

It was the team from the Emirates that ultimately won the Trofeo Tessile & Moda. On the climb to Oropa, Adam Yates was ultimately the strongest after Pavel Sivakov seemed to give up. Tudor talent Mathys Rondel impressed and finished second, while Jay Vine completed the UAE party with a third place.

Seven seconds behind the Australian, Scaroni finished fourth. That's not a bad result at all, coming a day after the Tour of Lombardy, in which he finished fifteenth. “I had a tough time in the first few kilometers. I still had the Il Lombardia in my legs. I knew I would suffer in the first hour, even on the flat. I asked my teammates to stay close to me, and they did their best.”

“When we got to the climb, my legs started to feel better, but the UAE team was really strong and had more riders there,” he explained afterward to Cycling Pro. “They started attacking left and right, and when Yates and Rondel accelerated, I wasn't smart enough to keep up. Chumil and I started to ride away, thinking more about the podium than catching up with Yates.”

In the chase for that third and final podium place, there was even consultation with UAE. “I asked if they could give us the podium, but unfortunately, they also wanted to take third place. If they are too strong, it doesn't matter. I was aiming for the podium, but when I tried to get closer to Vine, I always had Sivakov on my wheel.”

So the disappointment is understandable. “I'm sorry, because the podium would have made our team more visible. Today, they were superior. We'll take this fourth place; it's up to us to see what happens in the next two races,” said the number four in the day's results.

The fact that UAE also wanted the third podium place at all costs disappointed Scaroni. “When they told me they wanted it too, I honestly thought it was a ‘not very human’ choice. If you've already won the race, I don't understand why they would take away the visibility of a team like Burgos, or ours.”

Still, the Italian could understand it to some extent. “Ultimately, it's their choice. Whether you agree with it or not, everyone races in their own way, and they did the right thing by doing what was asked of them. That's very good,” Scaroni concluded his analysis. The XDS Astana rider will be in action twice more next week, in the Giro del Veneto and the Veneto Classic.