Giro dell'Emilia: Davide Piganzoli takes solo victory after perfectly timed attack in final five kilometres

Davide Piganzoli won a pulsating edition of the Giro dell’Emilia on Saturday, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider attacking on the descent before the final climb of San Luca to win alone.

Behind him, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) put in a dogged fight to take second place, three seconds behind, with Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) in third.

Piganzoli had been towed onto the back of a three-man group by Pidcock on the descent of the penultimate of five ascents of the San Luca climb, then escaped late on the descent. With his teammate Matteo Jorgenson in the chasing group, the pursuit took time to form and was far from concerted, with the Italian leading by 15 seconds at the bottom of the final climb.

Much of the chase was left to Pidcock, but the British rider struggled to close the gap, only coming close when Onley made a move, but by then the victory was PIganzoli’s, the 24-year-old taking a sixth career win.

In its 109th edition, the Giro dell’Emilia took on a 197.9k route starting in Ferrara and closing with its traditional finish up the legendary San Luca climb in Bologna. Indeed, that ascent, and its screaming tifosi, would feature five times, the race taking on four frantic nine-kilometre laps to close the day.

The route was mostly flat for the opening 100km, only then did the road begin to rise to Loiano, the climb covering 6.6km with an average gradient of 5.7%. After that, the Salita di Via Belvedere presented a 1.8km test at over 9.2%, before the road headed north to the finish on the outskirts of Bologna.

After an active start, eight riders escaped up the road. Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek), Ådne Holter (UNO-X Mobility), Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani-CSF 7Saber), Diego Pablo Sevilla (Polti-Visit Malta), Ben Granger, Tommaso Nencini (both Solution Tech Nippo Rali) and the General Store-Essegibi-F.Lli Curia pair of Andrii Ponomar and Kevin Mezzo Rosola soon built a lead.

That advantage stuck resolutely around the two-minute mark, with the peloton not allowing them too much more, and as they passed the halfway mark they sat only 2:20 ahead. However, over the top of the Loiano climb, the lead began to drop.

With the lead just over one minute, the Salita di Via Belvedere proved the undoing of the breakaway, the group beginning to split as the peloton closed in. Though their advantage steadied for a while, with the first ascent of San Luca fast approaching, the peloton were flying, the leaders less than 20 seconds ahead at the bottom and caught well before the top.

A brief truce followed, but before the top the action kicked off again, and a group of six took a small lead through the finish line, though they were never allowed to build any kind of meaningful advantage. Only three remained when they crossed the line after the second ascent of San Luca, though the chasing peloton was significantly smaller than the one they’d attacked, but the race was back together shortly afterwards.

The next ascent saw the race truly explode, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) launching a move which World Champion Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) countered. On the descent, the race reformed slightly, though McNulty’s team had three men in a 16-man group and began playing their cards, with Jhonatan Narváez attacking repeatedly.

However, the race was in a constant state of flux with repeated attacks onto the penultimate climb, where Jorgenson attacked yet again, further thinning the group and crossing the line with Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) and Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) as Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) chased desperately.

With Davide Piganzoli glued to his wheel, Pidcock caught the leading trio on the descent, but Piganzoli soon made his race-winning move.

Result

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