Cycling, Tour of Slovenia: Ulissi Wins Overall (Video)

STA, 23 June 2019 - Italian Diego Ulissi of UAE Emirates team won the 26th Tour of Slovenia on Sunday. He defended the green jersey despite not having won the final, 170-kilometre stage of the tour, which went to his compatriot Giacomo Nizzolo (Dimension Data).

Slovenian Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) was second to cross the finish line in Novo Mesto and Shane Archbold (Bora-Hansgrohe) of New Zealand was third.

Ulissi claimed the green jersey on Friday and had no problems defending it yesterday, when he finished second, nor today. This is his second victory of Tour of Slovenia, having bagged the first title in 2011.

Ulissi said he was very happy to win Tour of Slovenia because he only came here to train after having won the Gran Premio di Lugano a week earlier. "But then, suddenly, there was an opportunity to win the race and I took it."

"The final stage was very hard. rain at the beginning and then the attack by Gazprom, it was really hard for me. I think we risked too much on the final descend, but luckily, it all worked out," said Ulissi.

Second place overall went to Italian Giovanni Visconti (Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia-KTM), third to Russian Aleksandr Vlasov (Gazprom-RusVelo) and fourth to Slovenian Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates), who won the white jersey conferred to the best young rider of the race.

Stage 5 results
 1 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita/Dimension Data)                   4:01:55
 2 Luka Mezgec (Slo/Michelton-Scott)
 3 Shane Archbold (Nzl/Bora-Hansgrohe)
 4 Andrea Vendrame (Ita/Androni)
 5 Davide Cimolai (Ita/Israel Cycling Academy)
 6 Vincenzo Albanese (Ita/Bardiani)
 7 Umberto Marengo (Ita/Neri Sottoli)
 8 Tadej Pogačar (Slo/Team Emirates)
 9 Simone Velasco (Ita/ Neri Sottoli)
10 Giovanni Visconti (Ita/Neri Sottoli)             all same time
...
22 Domen Novak (Slo/Bahrain-Merida)                        + 0:12
23 Jan Polanc (Slo/Team Emirates)                            0:19
29 Matej Drinovec (Slo/Slovenia)                             2:23
32 Grega Bole (Slo/Bahrain-Merida)                      same time
...

Overall
 1 Diego Ulissi (Ita/UAE Emirates)                       15:39:28
 2 Giovanni Visconti (Ita/Neri Sottoli)                    + 0:22
 3 Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus/Gazprom)                            0:25
 4 Tadej Pogačar (Ita/UAE Emirates)                          0:30
 5 Andrea Vendrame (Ita/Androni)                             1:04
 6 Esteban Chaves (Col/Mitchelton-Scott)                     1:08
 7 Fausto Masnada (Ita/Androni)                              1:21
 8 Ben Hermans (Bel/Israel Cycling Academy)                  2:21
 9 Jan Polanc (Slo/UAE Emirates)                             3:17
10 Lorenzo Rota (Ita/Bardiani)                               4:49
...
13 Grega Bole (Slo/Bahrain-Merida)                           8:03
24 Domen Novak (Slo/Bahrain-Merida)                         16:36
28 Kristjan Hočevar (Slo/Team Slovenia)                     19:31
29 Luka Mezgec (Slo/Mitchelton-Scott)                       20:44