Davide Piganzoli (Team Visma | Lease A Bike, Italy) won the Giro dell’Emilia on 3 October, alone, 2″ ahead, in 4h33’19”. Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, Great Britain) was second, Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos, Great Britain) third.
The race
The Giro dell’Emilia started from Ferrara, for the first time from the city centre, in front of the Castello Estense. From there it ran 197.9 kilometres to Bologna and the sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, where the race has always finished. In the finale the San Luca circuit was repeated for five climbs. Nairo Quintana was also on the start line, having chosen this race to end his career.
The breakaway formed early: seven or eight riders, depending on the reports, with a maximum lead of over two minutes. The peloton kept it at a distance, with Pidcock’s Pinarello-Q36.5 doing much of the work, and caught it before the first passage over San Luca.
With the escapees caught, the race became a sequence of attacks. Pello Bilbao tried to take a small group clear, but was brought back into line after the descent. Then Matteo Jorgenson attacked several times, and Visma began to show its plan: to bring three men to the finale, Piganzoli, Jorgenson and Ben Tulett.
Piganzoli tried a first acceleration on the penultimate San Luca. Brandon McNulty, of UAE, shut it down, and shortly afterwards Piganzoli was at the front again together with Pidcock. At that point Visma had the advantage of having more cards to play, and Jorgenson kept breaking up every chase.
The decisive move came less than five kilometres from the finish. Piganzoli left the group of the best and took a margin that the reports measure differently, between 15 and 25 seconds. Behind, it was mainly Pidcock who chased, with Onley, but the space between the two and Piganzoli did not close.
On the last ramp towards the basilica the lead narrowed, but it was enough. Piganzoli arrived alone, with 2″ on Pidcock and Onley, who finished in the same time. Pidcock is second for the third year in a row. Tulett completed a perfect team finale: fourth at 5″, with Jorgenson fifth at 12″.
For Piganzoli, 24 years old, it is a win that carries weight: the rider from the Valtellina returns an Italian to the top of the roll of honour after Alessandro De Marchi in 2018, and does so in the colours of the team for which he has so far been mainly a workhorse in the mountains. On the same day, at San Luca, Alessia Vigilia also won solo in the women’s race.
Among the top ten there are 2 Italians. 71 riders finished out of 167 starters.
How they finished
The top ten
| # | Rider | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Davide Piganzoli | Team Visma | Lease A Bike | 4h33’19” |
| 2 | Tom Pidcock | Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team | +2″ |
| 3 | Oscar Onley | Netcompany Ineos | +2″ |
| 4 | Ben Tulett | Team Visma | Lease A Bike | +5″ |
| 5 | Matteo Jorgenson | Team Visma | Lease A Bike | +12″ |
| 6 | Ben Healy | EF Education-Easypost | +22″ |
| 7 | Lorenzo Fortunato | XDS Astana Team | +29″ |
| 8 | Adam Yates | UAE Team Emirates XRG | +37″ |
| 9 | Michael Storer | Tudor Pro Cycling Team | +45″ |
| 10 | Brandon McNulty | UAE Team Emirates XRG | +45″ |
The numbers of the race
- Selection index
- 86 out of 100 Of 71 finishers: 7 within 30 seconds of the winner, 16 within 2 minutes, all within 10 minutes (him included). It runs from 0, a bunch sprint, to 98, a solo finish.
News written with the help of Mnemosyne.
Sources
- Results and times: UCI, official results.
- Photo: Danysan1, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
