Gilbert repeats at Gran Piemonte

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Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) repeated his victory at the Gran Piemonte race with a text-book solo attack in the final kilometre that took his rivals by surprise. Italy's Leonardo Bertagnolli (Androni Giocattoli) finished second and Matti Breschel (Saxo Bank) was third. Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) was fourth but again missed out on victory.

Gilbert won the Italian race in 2009 before going on to dominate the Tour of Lombardy and must now be favourite for Saturday's final classic of the season.

“I felt good and was able to finish off the work of the team,” Gilberto told Gazzetta dello Sport.

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“With 700 metres to go I felt more or less like I did at the world championships but you can’t always win even when your form is great.”

Asked about about his chance of further success in Saturday's Tour of Lombardy, Gilbert admitted he was slightly worried about the new course. But has already picked his big rivals.

I’ll go and look at the new part of the course tomorrow but I’m most worried about the descent after the Colma di Sormano,” he said.

“My rivals? Evans, Kolobnev, above all, then Nibali and Visconti.”

The break takes the wrong road

Despite many of the riders in the peloton already thinking about their end of season holidays, the Gran Piemonte got off to a rapid start, with the first hour covered at a leg-burning average speed of 51.60km/h.

An early break was chased down by the Katusha team, but then six riders went away after 56km, and the peloton let them go.

Luca Solari (Androni Giocattoli) Oscar Puyol (Cervelo TestTeam), Tony Gallopin (Cofidis), Sonny Colbrelli (Colnago-CSF Inox), Alessandro De Marchi (Androni Giocattoli) and Elia Favilli (ISD-Neri) quickly opened an eight-minute lead as the peloton enjoyed the views across the vineyards and rolling hills of north Piemonte.

Former world champion Cadel Evans (BMC) and several other riders climbed off at the first feed zone after 100km but after lunch the peloton began the serious chase of the sextet.

However the break lost all of its advantage and was even overtaken by the peloton after taking the wrong road following a descent with approximately 30km to go. The riders apparently kept racing for several minutes before they and the organisers realised they had gone off course.

Seven other riders then went on the attack on the La Morra climb, just after the race came back together, but they were pulled back before the 18km finishing circuit around Cossato.

Alexandr Dyachenko (Astana) and Vladimir Gusev (Katusha) tried to go clear but the Omega Pharma-Lotto team kept them in check, preparing the ground for Gilbert to make his late move.

The classy Belgian jumped away with one kilometre to go as the two were pulled back. He crossed the line alone with his arms in the air, reminding everyone that he will be the big favourite to pull off a similar move on Saturday at the Tour of Lombardy.