Since 1993, October has seen the procycling world descend on East Asia for the continent’s only UCI Proseries one day race: The Japan Cup. With the exception of 2020 & 2021 (both cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic), the ‘bicycle city’ of Utsunomiya has hosted a real ‘festival’ of cycling, and this year is no different. On Friday there will be the traditional and unique presentation of the teams, followed by a criterium on Saturday, and Sunday’s main event. Once again, over 100,000 fans are expected to be there, giving the three days a special place in the calendar.
The startlist is made up of six UCI WorldTeams, four UCI ProTeams, eight UCI Continental teams, and six riders representing the home nation.
The Bahrain selection will have co-leaders in Lenny Martinez and Afonso Eulálio, as Sports Director Michal Golaś explains:
“I think we we are competitive, seeing how Lenny came back in the second part of the season. He was in the mix at Lombardy and we will give full support to him and also to Afonso, who at the end of a long season has proved he’s in good shape. I think the race suits him, but like I said, the season is long and races in the middle of October require some focus and a really strong will to perform. Those two riders will have the full support of the team.”
We achieved our best result here last year as Matej Mohorič finished third, and with the the podium being the objective once again, the four riders supporting our French-Portuguese duo will be crucial on Sunday. Golaś introduces us to the rest of the team:
“We have Torstein Træen who is an experienced rider and I think he will be very important for us to guide these two boys. Vlad Van Mechelen will also be support, but he will have the chance to ride aggressively, even though the race is slightly too hard for him. Rainer Kepplinger is another support guy, and after a couple of races in Italy he will also be key for us to control the first half of the race. When the race gets hard and the selection is big enough, we will start to ride aggressively ourselves with our two leaders.
Completing the lineup is our Devo rider Yoshiki Terada, riding on home roads, who will provide more support on Sunday.
It’s worth mentioning too that Vlad has a nice chance to show our jersey and have a fight on Saturday’s criterium so we will support him lots then.”
The grand finale of the three-day event – the “Utsunomiya Japan Cup Road Race,” will be raced in and around Utsunomiya City Forest Park. The route is 144.2km (14 laps of a 10.3km circuit), which includes 14 ascents of the extremely challenging Mt. Kogashi (1.4 km, averaging 7.7%). Golaś brings more detail:
“The race itself is 14 laps and is pretty selective. Basically it’s just up and down with only a short flat part. We need to be ready from the start: if there are some big moves from the World Tour teams we need to follow, but like I said, the main thing is to have the race under control in the first phase and make the selection in the second, using our strength in numbers, because I really believe that those two guys are able to win the race.”
Bahrain have one clear goal on Sunday: to podium as we did 12 months ago. To achieve that objective, our boys are ready for a hard start and a demanding day, especially as it comes at the end of a long, tough season.
