Polga last man standing at for TNN at Franco Belge

For Italian Antonio Polga ‘giving up’ doesn’t enter his vocabulary and the 27 year old showed his ‘grinta’ once again for Team Novo Nordisk in Belgium today, hanging tough as the race split apart at Circuit Franco Belge.

After attending the TNN Talent ID camp numerous times Polga was rejected just as many times, but kept coming back, each time getting stronger and each time coming closer to selection. 

Finally making it to the Devo team he impressed and jumped straight to the pro team, he hasn’t looked back. This year he raced his first monument at Milan-Sanremo and the same core belief in himself is what got him through today’s 85th edition of Franco Belge – belief and hard work.

“I’m slowly finding my feet in the Belgian and French one day races,” began Polga. “I’m never going to be a protagonist, I don’t have the speed or the physique for that, but I enjoy the fight. And after the break was brought back early with 70km to go it was real battle to stay in the group.”

The race exploded over the punchy closing circuits and with repeated attacks splitting the bunch, leaving around 35 riders going on to contest the sprint.

Vincenza native Polga was dogging in, part of the chasing group and the last TNN rider in the race, “It was a hard one today and I kept dropping on the climbs,” continued Polga. “But then making it back in on the flats, until the last lap when my group lost contact with the leaders and we just worked hard to make it to the end.”

Now comes a few days respite for the team before picking up again at next weeks Tour of Slovenia.