Coppa Agostoni: Davide Formolo uses late solo attack for victory

Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) leapt away from a late breakaway to claim victory in the Coppa Agostoni on home soil.

It was another display of dominant team tactics by Formolo's team, as Marc Hirschi acted as a foil in the Italian's 11km solo move, marking any attempt to chase before leaping away with 1.1km to race to solo in for second place.

In the three-rider sprint for the final podium spot, Victor Lafay (Cofidis) outpaced Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic) and Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla).

“I am very happy, I missed this winning feeling," Formolo said. "I had the task of reducing the peloton as much as I could on the Lissolo and the selection brought me in the head group with four other riders. 

"When Hirschi joined us, I focused my energy on keeping a high pace in order to benefit Marc for an eventual sprint. We noticed that the others were watching him, so we decided to try something, I attacked on the last hill and this was the winning move."

The 76th edition of the Coppa Agostoni 195.7km snaked through Lombardy with hardly any flat terrain, including 3,200 metres of climbing and a tough circuit including the Colle Brianza and Lissolo climbs tackled four times. The final climb comes with 35km remaining before a flat, fast finish.

The early breakaway included Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Maxime Bouet (Arkéa-Samsic), Oscar Verona (Ineos), Marco Tizza (Bingoal WB) and Matteo Vercher (TotalEnergies) but Jayco-AlUla and UAE Team Emirates led the charge to smash the race to pieces.

Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates), Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic), Ivan Garcia (Movistar), Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), Clement Berthet (AG2R Citroën) and Victor Lafay (Cofidis) emerged at the front with 50km to go, and were chased by a Alpecin-Deceuninck-led much reduced peloton at just 15 seconds.

The lead group began to come unglued with Berthet and Garcia struggling and being picked up by the chasers, with the AG2R rider going to work for teammate Ben O'Connor. Also in the group, Hirschi and Diego Ulissi had teammate Formolo up the road and didn't need to work, Alessandro Verre could sit with Barguil in the break, Filippo Zana and Simon Yates the same with Harper, leaving only a tired Garcia and Eolo Kometa's Vincenzo Albanese to help the AG2R riders.

O'Connor, after losing Berthet, was the only rider left working to close down the 20-second gap but it was a hard slog. With 36km to go, Hirschi attacked on the last climb with a huge acceleration into a short descent before rocketing away up the rest of the climb.

He made it across and put Formolo to work to hold off the chasers, and hold a lead of nearly a minute in the fast approach to the finish. Ulissi attacked out of the second group to try and scramble across but faced a difficult 45-second gap and put his teammates in strange position.

Formolo attacked the lead group on a small climb with 11km to go, allowing Hirschi to sit on while Ulissi was not making much progress behind. Formolo had a slight lead of seven seconds on the snaking climb with 8km left to race but then built that gap to 24 seconds inside 3km to go.

Gritting his teeth in pain, Formolo powered to his first victory since the 2020 Critérium du Dauphiné and only his fifth career win.

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