CYCLING: Bury twin Adam Yates wins Industria & Artigianato race

The 21-year-old – whose brother Simon recently made his debut in the Tour de France – eased to victory by outsprinting Italian rider Davide Formolo.

Adam’s latest victory continues a fantastic first season as a professional racing for ORICA-GreenEDGE, on the same team as his brother.

He kicked off a great campaign by winning the Tour of Turkey before finishing fifth in the Tour of California, which was won by Sir Bradley Wiggins, and sixth in the Criterium du Dauphine, the traditional curtainraiser for the Tour de France.

“Coming from the track background I am still pretty quick in these little finishes, especially went it is just climbers,” said Yates, after he joined Formolo in a late breakaway before easing away from him on the final descent.

“I raced Formolo quite a lot last year because he was an under 23 as well so obviously I knew him from that.

“Obviously there is always a doubt but in the back of my mind I knew I had a good advantage over him and it obviously came off.”

Yates went into the race fresh off his first ever altitude camp.

“It has had a positive effect already,” Yates said.

“It was the first time I have been to altitude, so to win so early is always a good sign and hopefully it continues.

“I wasn’t really sure (how I would race). The last couple of days of training camp I was feeling quite good and quite strong but you never know, training is a lot different than racing.

“I have got a couple of big weeks coming up soon and it would be great if it continues.”

Yates followed up his victory with a fifth-placed finish in the Giro della Toscana, also in Italy, on Sunday. He finished six seconds behind the winner, team-mate Pieter Weening.

The Bury rider is set to compete in the Vuelta – Spain’s equivalent of the Tour de France – at the end of August. He will warm up for that with another one-day race – the Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian – on Saturday.