The cycling team Bahrain Merida, whose world premiere was at the end of October in Poreč, will be in Opatija until the end of the week. The World Tour team led by the great Vincenzo Nibali, one of only six people who won three largest cycling races (Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta) is currently in Rovinj at their first training camp. Until the end of the week they will relocate to Opatija to undergo extensive health tests needed to attain a competitive license for the upcoming season, Novi List has reported on December 15, 2016.
Last year Alberto Contador and his colleagues from the Tinkoff team, including Rijeka native Robert Kišerlovski, had only words of praise for the expert team at Thalassotherapia. “Professional sport is a lifestyle, these athletes need superior individual approach and we have proven to be able to offer it,” claimed Viktor Peršić, director of Thalassotherapia, a specialized clinic of the Faculty of Medicine of Rijeka University.
The arrival of Bahrain Merida to Croatia, as well as last year’s visit by Tinkoff, is credited to Vladimir Miholjević and others gathered around the now well established Tour of Croatia. Miholjević and Ivan Črnjarić managed to pull off two editions of the race, providing huge benefits for Croatian tourism since the promotion of Croatia as an ideal cyclotourism destination finally found a proper path.
The cyclotourism movement is one of the fastest growing tourism branches in the world, so the creation of the Croatian Tour gave domestic tourism workers a different way of seeing possibilities offered by cycling, both professional and recreational, with true valorisation to come once Croatian institutions truly support this project which brings huge promotion of Croatia in the world.
Proving this is true is the recent article in La Gazzetta dello Sport, most read Italian sports journal, which presented the Tour of Croatia in a very unique way. Viewed through the prism of the duel between Vincenzo Nibali and Fabio Aru, two of the currently best Italian cyclists, to be seen at the Tour of Croatia first.
Nibali and Aru competed side by side for four years in Astana. With the Giro d’Italia the most important race for both this year, both will make use of the Tour of Croatia for final preparations, skipping classics such as the Ardennes and Giro del Trentino.
