Gran Piemonte: Andrea Bagioli wins four-up sprint in Favria

Home star Andrea Bagioli delivered drama-emboiled Soudal Quick-Step their second win of the week on Thursday, outsprinting a small group to win the Gran Piemonte.

The Italian just edged out Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) in a four-man sprint, with Alex Aranburu (Movistar) taking third ahead of Guillaume Martin (Cofidis).

After an attacking, constantly changing day of racing, it was Hirschi who launched the decisive move, going away with Bagioli with 17km to go. They were then joined by Aranburu and Martin at 13km to go, and managed to defend a slim lead all the way to the finish before sprinting it out for the win.

Two large breakaways had defined the day, with the second surviving until the Alpette climb, where the race started to break up, giving way to the eventually decisive move.

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“‘Expect?’ A bit, yes,” Bagioli said when asked if he expected to win. “Because the shape was really good in the last races, especially in [Coppa] Bernocchi. So today we started with the victory in mind. It was a really fast start with the 90km flat, so it was pretty hard to control the breakaway but we had Dries [Devenyns] in front and on the last climb Cattaneo did a really super job.

“On the small bump with 20km to go, we went in the group of four and we pulled full gas because the bunch was always behind, 10 or 15 seconds maximum, so we arrived at the sprint, and I won.

“It’s super nice and next year I will leave the team. I spent my first four years of my career here, so I am really happy to leave the team with this victory.”

Bagioli is heading to Lidl-Trek next year on a three-year deal. This was the 24-year-old’s seventh professional victory.

Attack-filled racing in Piedmont

At 152km, Gran Piemonte was on the shorter side of some of the late-season Classics, and as a result it was an attacking affair from the gun. There were several moves in the first part of the day, but it took nearly 30km before a group went and stayed away, made up of Ide Schelling (Bora-Hansgrohe), Madis Mihkels (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) and Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step).

This trio was then chased down by a group of eight riders, including Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) and Michael Vink (UAE Team Emirates). The chasers caught the leading trio after 60km of racing, but the breakaway only had a small gap at this point, and all 11 men were reabsorbed into the peloton after just another couple of kilometres of racing.

The counter attacks started quickly, though, and soon another sizeable breakaway was up the road as the race went into its final 80km. Most of the teams who were represented in the first move also made it into this one, with Bob Jungels (Bora-Hansgrohe), Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) and Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) making it into the new 14-man break. This group was given more of a gap, and they soon had a minute and half of an advantage, and this situation remained stable for several kilometres.

On the run-in to the Alpette, the biggest climb of the day, there was a split in the peloton as the teams on the front set a high pace in pursuit of the leaders, who still had a minute and a half heading into the final 40km, as well as having the advantage of being a fairly big group who were working well together.

However, this situation changed quickly as the climb began properly, with the gap then rapidly tumbling as the road went up, halved to 45 seconds within just a few kilometres of the climb as the first victims of the breakaway began to be swept up. The pace on the climb put Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) into some trouble with the Belgian caught on the wrong side of a split in the peloton.

Mattia Cattaneo, Andrea Bagioli (Soudal Quick-Step), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) and Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) took advantage of this split, chipping off the front of the remainder of the peloton to pass the dropped breakaway leaders and go in search of the remaining race leaders. Behind, Van Aert’s chances were fading as he continued to slip down the groups on the climb.

Towards the top of the climb, Cattaneo, Bagioli, Dunbar and Hirschi were rejoined by several riders from the peloton as the chasing group swelled, now including ridders like Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) and Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla). With 28km to go, they sat 22 seconds behind the remaining four leaders - Formolo, Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan), Jonathan Caicedo (EF Education-EasyPost) and Rui Costa (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty).

Going into the final 20km, the leaders started attacking each other, which ultimately spelled the end of their time out front, and they were caught by a now larger chasing group with 18km to go. Soon after, Marc Hirschi launched a big attack, taking Bagioli with him as the lead group splintered. After a set-up from Jorgenson, Alex Aranburu (Movistar) set off to try to bridge to the leaders, followed by Martin, and the leading duo became four with 13km to go. Going into the last 5km, the quartet had a slender but defendable 15-second lead, whilst Ineos led the chase behind.

Holding a gap into the final kilometre, the leaders started preparing for a sprint. Martin, the weakest sprinter, tried to go long, but was quickly shut down and it became a long drag to the line. Bagioli led the way, and despite it looking like Hirschi was coming very close to passing him, the Italian just edged the Swiss rider on the line, negating the need for a photo finish by sitting up and celebrating his victory as Hirschi banged his bars in frustration. Aranburu took third ahead of Martin.

Filippo Ganna crossed the line as the first chaser to take fifth, but a crash on the final corner had disrupted the final sprint, with several riders going down within sight of the finish after Vincenzo Albanese (EOLO-Kometa) slid out on the last turn.