This Saturday, the men led by Valerio Piva took the initiative on the Il Lombardia (1.WT, 9/10), the fifth and final Monument of the season. Initially, the experienced Jan Bakelants, who was on his ninth participation, represented Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux in the breakaway of 10 riders, which had broken away in the climb of Madonna del Ghisallo, the first difficulty of the day.
The leading group enjoyed a lead of up to six minutes at the top of the second difficulty, a gap that then fell to four minutes around the middle of the race. Driven by the Belgian, the breakaway survived beyond the summit of the Zambla Alta climb, the highest point of this last World Tour event of the season. Immediately after the regrouping on the descent, the local rider Lorenzo Rota counterattacked, finding himself briefly alone ahead of the race 45 kilometers from the finish.
It all played out in the ascent of the Passo di Ganda, the penultimate climb exploited by Pogacar (UAE) to make the difference over the rest of the competitors. Joined in the valley leading to Bergamo by Masnada (Deceuninck), the Slovenian eventually won the two-man sprint. After six hours of effort, Lorenzo Rota took 28th place on home soil.
I received the task, along with Odd Christian Eiking and Simone Petilli, to get into the breakaway and I succeeded. The front group was interesting, with good engines such as Campenaerts or Wellens and therefore we had hope to last quite long. However the peloton never let go and made us no favor, they rode at very high tempo throughout the day. When we got caught, I did my best to be useful until the final climb where everything unfolded. I am happy to conclude the World Tour campaign with our jersey at the front, we remained faithful to ourselves by adopting an attacking style from the first until the last race.
