Porto - Lisbon - NE

Portugal, June 10, 2000

Mauri wins a monster classic

Benfica's Melchor Mauri won the 338 km (!) Portuguese classic Porto-Lisbon Saturday. Benfica controlled the race completely. After just eight kilometres a front group was formed: Jorge Silva (Benfica), Adrian Palomares (Boavista), Nuno Alves (Porta da Ravessa), Segis de la Torre (LA Pecol), Pedro Cardoso (Maia), Sérgio Rodrigues (Troiamarisco) Evandro Portela (Cantanhede), Óscar Serrano (Barbot), Ezequiel Mosquera (Paredes) and Daniel Petrov (Gresco/Tavira). The group had for a while, at Caldas da Rainha with "only" a little more than 100 kms to go, fifteen and a half minutes to the peloton.

The two major teams, Benfica and LA Pecol, were obviously not satisfied with the composition of the group and started the chase at this point. When the group was caught Victoriano Fernandez (Boavista), Unai Yus (Troiamarisco) and Mauri soon joined them. Yus soon had had enough and Mauri beat Fernandez in the sprint after almost eight hours of racing. 62 riders of 90 starters made it to the finish.

Results - 338 km

1. Melchor Mauri (Spa) Benfica             7.56.27 (42.565 kph)
2. Victoriano Fernandez (Spa) Boavista    
3. Nuno Marta (Por) Maia-MSS                  0.16
4. Manuel Liberato (Por) Barbot-Torrié
5. Vicente Elvira (Spa) Troiamarisco 
6. José Barros (Por) Boavista
7. Saulius Sarkauskas (Ltu) LA Pecol
8. Delmino Pereira (Por) Boavista
9. Jorge Carvalho (Por) Paredes Móvel
10. Pablo Getafe (Spa) Troiamarisco