A sunny day for the riders in San Marino, but they can’t be enjoying the weather too much with such a difficult course ahead. The puncheurs are ready for a big day today.
No attacks manage to stay clear over the first lap, probably because too many strong riders are trying to get involved, like Costa, Passalacqua and Forcellini. However as Panayotov tries to stay clear solo at the end of the first lap there’s a crash in the pack!
Boily, Vichot and Pellaud are down! And while they’ll certainly have a while to make it back, it’s not a good start for them.
Over the next lap we finally see some attacks that have more potential as Rocchetti and Manfredi come onto the 3rd lap with a 2 minute lead on the pack, which doesn’t look fully content yet.
Over the remainder of the lap they are joined by some more riders to form a 7 man group:
Last year’s second place Haavardsholm and Rocchetti are the strongest riders, while the Bulgarian has clearly been suffering to make it into this group. They have a 3 minute lead now with 100km left.
Really bad news for Kulczyk, Vichot must be suffering from his injuries as he is dropped from the peloton with 95km left.
At the front, Koshevoy attacks and joins the break, Marentes also makes a bizarre move and gets stuck in no-mans land between the break and the peloton, where his teammates do the bulk of the work, with a little assistance from Xero
On the second-to-last ascent of the race the peloton starts shredding it and the break (not including Marentes) only has 1’13 with 22km left as the favourites coalesce at the front with , Diggle taking up the reigns now.
Suddenly the peloton loses all impetus, Xero is the only team with domestiques willing to work and they are exhausted and with 15km left the break’s lead pulls back out to 2 minutes.
Also, surprisingly, Cunego, Othman and Wahyudi have been dropped.
And with the final 7km of climbing, the break still has 2 minutes on the pack. Now we begin to see some selections here Koshevoy and Rocchetti get an immediate gap as they go for it and Manfredi joins them a moment after.
Roux knows that he has to go now if he wants to stand a chance and sprints away. Gaimon reacts but can’t keep up and doesn’t get away as Chaves leads the chase.
Up front, Manfredi can’t keep up with the other two break members and is caught by the rest of the break.
Rocchetti goes alone now as the Belorussian can’t keep his pace, he has 30 seconds now on the rest of the break and still 2 minutes on the peloton!
On the same corner 2 minutes later, Chaves makes a move in the race for 9th as he catches Roux. Just behind, Wyss, Bratashcuk, Kratchovila and Rybakov gain a small gap on a tired peloton.
Rocchetti looks unstoppable, with now a 40 second lead on the next riders, where Haavardsholm tries to lead the remainder of the break back to him but it just seems too late.
And Rocchetti wins the San Marino Hill Classic! Pure class from the Italian on the final climb.
Haavardsholm gaps the rest of the break in his sprint but still has to settle for second, repeating last year’s performance exactly. Still a good result for the Norwegian.
Gaday surprises by finishing 3rd, the Argentine must have saved his legs on the climb. Okeloen is next, then Koshevoy, Manfredi and Panayotov cross in that order, all must be pleased as break wins in classics are rare.
Kreuziger has been dropped in the final kilometre however and is suffering to hold off the favourites.
Roux gets a gap on Chaves and sets his sights on stealing 8th off Kreuziger, although he only has 700 metres left now.
The four other escapees have been caught by the pack now but are still on the front. While behind them we don’t necessarily see the expected names near the front of the peloton, with Lietaer, Pellaud and Geschke immedietly behind the first riders, before 3 VMP riders: Petrache, Bole and Berdos.
Roux doesn’t have the legs though and finishes 9th behind the Czech rider. Chaves follows on from him. They’ll both be disappointed, but at least they get a top 10, which is more than most favourites can say.
The peloton is quite a small bunch when Geschke wins the sprint, a surprising result, given the difficulty of the climb.
