Welcome to Itally. It’s doomsday for the top division as the best riders in the world take on the glorious Giro di Lombardia.
We’ve barely let the flag fly before Geniets launches the first attack, followed by Siric and Tiller.
Next wave of riders trying to shut the 15 second gap to those are: Menten, Sleen, Voisard, Oliveira and Sunderland. Those early attemps are shut down however.
As the break tries to reestablish the battle gets an interesting contender as McCarthy wants to get ahead of the action and join the break. Amaysim are almost surely locked to go down but it seems like McCarthy has some plans of his own to create the necessary points.
That attempt is short-lived as another wave of attacks comes through with Voisard and Sleen trying again being joined by four new riders in Finkler, Ssabagwanya, Ikibe and Donovan. Sunderland and Siric are still in front of this group.
After 30 kilometres of intense battling to get in the break it is finally established as we see Sunderland, Ssabagwanya, Siric, De La Cruz Chapulin, Carretero Millan and Albanese. They quickly get a 5 minute gap to the peloton that keeps growing.
With 60kms to go the break has been caught bar Carretero Millan and Ssabagwanya are the only remaining stragglers but they will be caught up any moment now. This leaves a completely empty field for the big guns to make their mark!
As the pack enters Colma di Sormano, there’s a heavy Puma presence at the front of the pack although it is Le Roux and Battistella leading the pack into the climb. 5 kilometres with an 11.9% average incline awaits, we should start seeing the big splits occur now!
As the favourites were battling for positions Kudus took the front to set some heavy pace to make use of his great climbing skills but the Eritrean gets a very unfortunate puncture and sees himself tumble down through the pack. No splits yet for him to battle through but a long way to climb back to the front.
As the favourites make it over the top the first move is made! Latour decides to go alone.
The pack has been split ever so slightly at the top. The timetakers are saying that it is a 56” gap which is bad news for Kudus who is down in the middle of the 146 rider group still trying to make it over the top. Sagan is the only other big name not in the front group but he is in third position in the back group and should get contact relatively easily. It is worth nothing that there’s a huge descent now that should allow contact to be remade, but it is a lot of unfortunate energy that they have to waste to keep up with the front.
The descent causes more splits than the ascent as the entire pack is exploding into smaller groups. At the front Latour is currently maintaining a 20 second gap to a group of 20 favourites.
Elsewhere the climb finds himself over 2 minutes behind the action in the front in a group of 27 riders, but he is not alone. Huge names such as Skujins and Kinoshita did also not survive the Sormana. Mohoric is also stuck somewhere ahead of this trio but still not close to the main group at this moment in time. Time will tell if they can make it back!
As the front group reaches the valley Latour’s gap is still hovering around the 25 second mark but they have visual contact with Sosa doing the work for his captain to bring back the Frenchman.
With 26kms to go the Frenchman is brought back, which now puts the front group up to 21 riders. They have 1’23” to a group of 33 riders with the biggest names being Lutsenko and Godoy. The Kudus, Kinoshita, De Bie group is a further 1’23” down.
Gidich decides to cash in on Sosa’s hard work and launches an attack with 25kms to go. He is followed immediately by Pinot. The attack doesn’t create a gap and leads to a standstill before they enter the penultimate climb.
As the favourites enter Civiglio with 18kms to go Herklotz decides to show his face for the first time as he takes the front and sets the pace.
No surprise win for Shikai this time around as the Chinese rider runs out of gas midway through the climb, but from the helicopter pictures we can see that more groups are slowly getting back towards the favourites, this could be an explosive end to the season!
With 14kms to go the battle that we have been waiting for is getting started right in front of our eyes. Herklotz attacks with Lopez tied to his wheel!
While Dombrowski’s hard work reels them back immediately, their efforts were not in vain as the front group has been reduced from 20 to 7. With 12kms to go it is very likely that our winner will be found between: Herklotz, Hirt, Lopez, Formolo, Dombrowski, Barguil and Amezawa. There’s an eight man group currently 30 seconds behind them, that might be able to catch up.
One of the 13 riders that got contact as the pace was slowed down on the descent was Carthy, the British champion attacks with 9.2kms to the finish line, he has Amezawa and Lopez in trail.
The trio gets a gap of 12 seconds immediately and their pace was so blazing that even though Gidich tried to follow he was unable to close down instantly.
On the final climb of the season Amezawa tries to go alone and launches an attack. The Colombian follows but it seems like the Brit is out of gas.
Herklotz smells a shot here and decides to break the race right open with an attack to reel back the front two as Carthy has fully exploded and is nowhere to be found. Formolo is sticking to the German’s wheel.
And the moment that the German gets too close Lopez whips out an acceleration that could end up being decisive. 5.7km is all that separates him from an illustrious win!
But as he runs out of hill to work with he also runs out of distance to Herklotz. As the 17 man group starts the descent with 4.5kms left it seems like the final race of the season might be decided by a reduced bunch sprint! On paper Valter is the fastest guy in the group but with this race being as tough as it has been there’s no telling who has anything left in the tank!
As we enter the barriers the Hungarian has found his way to the front. But there is also a train being established behind Lopez with Herklotz and Formolo waiting for his move to be made on the final kilometres of the season!
As we go under the red kite Lopez makes the first move with Valter in second position.
He fades 200 metres from the finish line as Valter and Herklotz share the front. Meanwhile Amezawa, Latour and Formolo are all finding pace!
And it is going to a sprint win for Herklotz, great way to round out the season for Puma! Hirt somehow manages to snatch away the second podium spot in front of Valter with Latour and Formolo finishing out the top 5.
