Coppa Sabatini: Benoît Cosnefroy overtakes final breakaway rider for victory with punishing acceleration in closing metres

Benoît Cosnefroy won a nail biting edition of the Gran Premio Citta di Peccioli - Coppa Sabatini on Thursday, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider catching a solo breakaway rider with just metres left to race.

In what was a masterfully patient ride, the Frenchman waited to launch his sprint, catching solo attacker Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) with 75 metres to go. Clément Venturini (Unibet-Rose Rockets) finished second, with Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ United) in third.

The 11km final lap around the start and finish town of Peccioli was a tense affair, with Wednesday’s Giro della Toscana winner Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) off the front after bridging to a late breakaway. The Italian was within touching distance at the bottom of the final climb, with one kilometre to go, but still had a gap as he approached the line only for his heart to be broken, finishing sixth.

Cosnefroy’s move to UAE at the start of the year was a left-field move, but not only has he contributed to the team, he has five wins this season already.

“With 500 metres to go I did my best sprint to try to win but all day I'm not confident,” Cosnefroy said. “A lot of time I dropped and I come back again, just in the final it is different.

"But I’m really happy to take this victory for my teammates, my team. It’s my first victory here in Italy and in my career it’s important. Every race I try my best, but this morning I had no confidence with the rain, but it’s like this, I stay patient on the wheels, and and at the end it’s a victory, I don’t care, I’m so happy.

“Giulio has a very good shape this week, but sometimes it’s like this. Sometimes he attacks, and sometimes a bunch win. And he’s really a great rider, and I like Giulio.”

Rain, punchy climbs and punchy racing

The GP Città di Peccioli - Coppa Sabatini returned for its 74th edition, extending the series of Italian autumn classics. The 197.6km race started and finished in the Tuscan town of Peccioli, the lumpy course serving up 2,810m of climbing on a number of varying loops.

Featuring on multiple occasions, the climbs of Montefoscoli and Muro di Peccioli were particularly fearsome, both well into double-digit gradients. The Muro was not the final climb, though, that was less steep and appeared three times at the end of the race, the top which came the finish line.

As a second-tier 1.Pro race, the start list included nine WorldTour teams, but it was the ProTeams which represented in the breakaway, with Valentin Ferron (Cofidis) and Samuele Zoccorato (MBH Bank-CSB-Telecom Fort) getting up the road after a 45km fight.

The pair were allowed little more than a minute before EF Education-EasyPost took to the front of the peloton, managing the pace, and with 100km the leaders remained only 1:01 ahead, then as the race wore on the peloton gradually chipped away at their advantage.

The pair were eventually caught with 81km to go and the race reset until three more riders tried to get away some 10km later, as the race became hugely dynamic with multiple attacks.

Just over 50km from the line Samuele Battistella (EF Education-EasyPost), Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) caught and dropped solo leader Sakarias Koller Løland (UNO-X Mobility) and built a lead of around one minute.

But 10km later they were still well within one minute of the bunch as moves began to chase them down began. However, before they were caught the wet roads took their toll, Vlasov crashing out of the front group, with Groupama-FDJ United leading the reduced peloton just 20 seconds behind.

With 25km to go, on the first ascent of the finish climb, Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), winner of Wednesday’s Giro della Toscana, attacked the bunch, riding across to the leaders, the three riders taking a lead of 10 seconds onto the penultimate lap.

With Pellizzari adding both strength and freshness to the break, and Groupama left to lead the chase, the lead more than doubled, but when Pellizzari repeated his attack of the previous lap he was unable to gain any advantage. With 10km to go, the 22-year-old led by only 16 seconds, but remarkably he was able to hold on almost to the line.

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