Coppa Agostini: Paul Lapeira returns to winning ways taking a breakaway sprint victory

With a lunge for the line, Paul Lapeira returned to form to win a tense and tight sprint at the end of Sunday’s Coppa Agostoni - Giro delle Brianze.

Part of the day’s breakaway of six riders, the Decathlon-CMA CGM man followed an early sprint from Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla). For a moment it seemed as though the Swiss rider would hold on for the win, but Lapeira managed to come over the top to take a second victory of his season.

Newly crowned World Champion Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) snatched second place with Andrea Raccagni Noviero (Soudal-Quick-Step) in third.

The group had formed after a combative opening to the race, where no break was able to establish itself. While a couple of riders were dropped, the moves from behind came too late to make a difference, and the six leaders crossed the line almost a minute before the rest of the field.

At 166.7km, the Coppa Agostini - Giro delle Brianze isn’t the longest of Italy’s autumn races, but with more than 3,000 m of climbing it certainly provided the peloton with a tough challenge through the northern Italian hills.

Heading north out of the start and finish town of Lissone, the race wound its way round four laps of a hilly circuit, each containing the Sirtori, Colle Brianza and Lissolo climbs, before returning south by a different route.

With the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad doing much of the work, it took over 40km for a breakaway to form, with a group of five clawing their way off the front. However, a few kilometres later the pot was stirred, and seven riders emerged at the front, with McNulty joined by Lapeira (Decathlon-CMA CGM), Schmid, Raccagni Noviero =, Sam Maisonobe (Cofidis), Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) and Francesco Busatto (Alpecin-Premier Tech).

Though Busatto was dropped on the final ascent of the Colle Brianza, they took a lead of more than a minute on a chasing group of three over the top, with the peloton by then almost two minutes down, and only the last Lissolo ascent remained at 40km to go.

Behind them, attacks eventually began to pepper the front of the peloton, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) clearly hoping to bridge to the front. Unfortunately for the British rider, he was followed by a host of riders with teammates among the leading group. However, with assistance from Carlos Canal (Movistar), the pair quickly made a dent in their deficit, as Adam Yates, Jhonatan Narváez (both UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Filippo Zana (Soudal-QuickStep) and Nicola Conca (XDS-Astana) sat on their wheels.

Then, as the race approached its closing kilometres, the group began working together, their numbers increased by the arrival of Filippo Agostinacchio (Biesse-Carrera-Premac) and Conca’s teammate Simone Velasco. Despite this newfound vigour, the deficit began to increase again, and with 20km remaining, it was back out to 1:20, only increasing as the finish neared.

At the front, the six leaders continued to work well together, and only in the final three kilometres did the finessing begin in earnest, with Raccagni Noviero missing a couple of turns before Fortunato launched two late, but unsuccessful attacks which Lapeira was forced to close.

Result

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