Adam Yates gave UAE Team Emirates XRG their 90th victory of the 2025 season on the same day that teammate Tadej Pogačar claimed the European road race title.
Yates' win was somewhat anti-climactic after his breakaway companion, Carlos Canal (Movistar) suffered a puncture with 17km to go and chased in for a disappointed second place.
"I didn’t think it was a race that suited me perfectly, but we raced with a lot of guys in the front and we came with a good team and made it count," Yates said.
"I feel sorry for Canal as we were working well together. We went on the climb quite far from the finish and we were working well but obviously he had his puncture so it was some bad luck for him. It would have been a good fight to the line, but I’m sure he’ll bounce back."
After an aggressive start and no breakaway for the first hour, a group of 17 riders powered away from the peloton.
In the group were: Nans Peters and Paul Lapiera (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ), Carlos Canal and Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar), Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal-Quickstep) and Fausto Masnada (XDS Astana), Hugo de la Calle and Sergio Chumil (Burgos Burpellet BH), Davide Piganzoli (Polti-VisitMalta), Jonathan Caicedo (Petrolike), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), Alessandro Fancellu (Team UKYO), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Adam Yates, Ivo Oliveira and Rafał Majka (UAE Team Emirates XRG).
They gained a couple of minutes on the peloton, but as the kilometres counted down and the accumulated fatigue of a dozen climbs began to bite, the breakaway disintegrated.
With 52km to go, Oliveira and Yates surged, and eventually only Yates and Canal were clear of the breakaway.
Behind, the peloton caught the backend of the escape group, with UAE Team Emirates XRG controlling affairs with the addition of Jay Vine.
After the final climb with 36km to go, Yates and Canal had 24 seconds on two chasers, Vine and Lapiera, with 1:15 on a group that included Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates XRG).
With 29km to go, Masnada attacked out of the chasing peloton and was followed by Del Toro and Gregor Mühlberger (Movistar), but everything came back together behind the two leaders.
With 20km to go, the pair had over two minutes on the chase, with UAE Team Emirates XRG marking any attempt to counter-attack.
There were only 17km to go when Canal suffered an untimely puncture and had to stop for a bike change, which put him 20 seconds behind Yates in the final 15km.
That left Yates to solo to victory while Canal had to settle for second.
A big group sprinted for the final podium position with Simone Velasco giving XDS Astana more points with third.
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