Lobato wins Coppa Sabatini

Juan Jose Lobato (Nippo-Vini Fantini) sprang a surprise to claim victory in the 2018 Coppa Sabatini, stealing a march on the field in the uphill finale of the Italian race.

The Spaniard, who was fired by LottoNL-Jumbo ahead of this season over an incident involving sleeping pills, claimed his first win for the Italian-Japanese Pro Conti team with a perfectly-timed effort in Pecciolo.

After a dramatic crash took out solo leader Vincenzo Albanese (Bardiani-CSF) in the final kilometre, Lobato caught the rest of the reduced peloton off guard and went from some 350 metres out. He opened a big gap and although he faded in the final metres he had done enough and was able to coast across the line.

Behind him, two-time winner Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) finished second, with recent Coppa Agostini and Giro della Toscana winner Gianni Moscon (Team Sky) in third.

"This year has been a difficult year for me, so this victory is very important for me, the most important, mentally ,that I’ve had for some time," he said. "I saw I could avoid the problem and the crash, and then I just went for it."

The late-season Tuscan race took the peloton on a lightly undulating 201.8km course, featuring six laps of a finish circuit. With the final kilometre of the circuit all uphill, it was always likely to be a battle between the punchy finishers. A six-man breakaway went away early on and contained: Fausto Masnada (Androni Giocattoli Sidermec), Emmanuel Morin (Cofidis), Sebastian Schonberger and Edoardo Zardini (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia), Nikolay Cherkasov (Gazprom-RusVelo), and Eduard Grosu (Nippo-Vini Fantini)

The sextet built up a lead of four minutes by the time they hit the local laps but were steadily reeled back in. Morin, Schonberger, and Grosu lost contact inside 50km to go, while Masnada dropped the remaining two and went solo with 40km to go.

The Italian was caught with 21km remaining, and was replaced by Giuseppe Fonzi (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia) in a counter-attack.

Fonzi was caught just over one lap to go, as AG2R set up a Romain Bardet attack and the Frenchman led down the short descent. He was joined briefly by Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida). Xandro Meurisse (Wanty Groupe Gobert), and Sebastian Henao (Team Sky), but Dimension Data dragged it back together.

A big left-hand turn led into the final kilometre, and Albanese rolled the dice with a long-ranger. He opened up a small gap but slid out on a left-hand bend just over 500 metres out. As the peloton skipped around him, Lobato sensed an opportunity and unleashed his vicious acceleration to claim a much-needed victory.

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