Gran Piemonte – Live coverage

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Gran Piemonte! It's the final race in the lead-up to Il Lombardia, and there's a revamped course this year, with a summit finish on the Oropa climb.

The racing is about to get underway in Agliè, a town to the north of Turin.

Like yesterday's Milano-Torino, today's race is flat for much of the day but with a couple of nasty climbs at the end. The climbs of Nelva and Oropa will decide the winner, with the mountains even tougher than Milano-Torino's Superga.

Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) and Kevin Rivera (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) are the only riders who finished in the top ten at Milano-Torino to take the start today.

Edoardo Zardini (Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia), Enrico Barbin (Bardiani-CSF) and Juri Hollmann (Katusha-Alpecin) were down to start today but are DNSes.

The pace is very high early on as riders attempt to break away from the peloton. Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) and Sergey Shilov (Gazprom-RusVelo) are among those on the attack.

The peloton is still together for the moment, however.

168km remaining from 183km

We have a breakaway. 

Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis), Carlos Barbero (Movistar), Elie Gesbert (Arkéa-Samsic), Francesco Romano (Bardiani-CSF), Mattia Bais (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) and Enrico Battaglin (Katusha-Alpecin) are up the road after 15km of racing.

160km remaining from 183km

The men out front are 2:30 up on the peloton now. They're established as the break of the day.

The gap is up to five minutes now as the peloton let the leaders get up the road.

One of the favourites today, Egan Bernal, was based near the start town before he moved to live to Andorra.

Yesterday, the Colombian said that his end-of-season programme is more about keeping fit for 2020, rather than specifically targeting results.

Egan Bernal lays foundation for 2020 while enjoying end-of-season Italian races

It's a long road to the start of the Biellese Alps today. There are 144km of largely flat roads for the riders to tackle before the real climbing begins.

Ineos are controlling the peloton at the moment, so no surprises what they have planned later on.

The average speed for opening hour was a swift 46kph.

135km remaining from 183km

The gap is down to four minutes now.

Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia missed the breakaway despite an early attempt. They're working at the front of the peloton now.

Some news on Saturday's Il Lombardia as Deceuninck-QuickStep announce their team for the race.

Gilbert and Mas lead Deceuninck-QuickStep at Il Lombardia

110km remaining from 183km

The gap to the break is down to three minutes.

Bahrain-Merida fire Koren and Bozic after doping bans

Team highlight that the offences were committed 'prior to the establishment of our team'

The riders are inside the final 100km now. After two hours of racing, the average speed is 45kph.

Here's a shot of today's break out on the road, led by Battaglin.

70km remaining from 183km

The situation out on the road is unchanged at the moment as the riders pass through the feed zone.

Numerous riders have abandoned the race so far, including Davide Formolo and Rafał Majka (both Bora-Hansgrohe), Richard Carapaz (Movistar) and Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic).

50km remaining from 183km

The break's advantage is down to just 1:30 now. Ineos are still at the front of the peloton, with UAE Team Emirates up there too.

UAE Team Emirates are working to close the gap and for Dan Martin later on today.

35km remaining from 183km

The climb to Nelva is soon to start and the break have an advantage of just 30 seconds.

And now the peloton is sweeping up riders from the break as they head uphill. Ineos lead the way.

30km remaining from 183km

Rossetto and Bais are the only men left up front. Rossetto is pushing on alone now though.

Rossetto is still out there on his own, just a few seconds up on the peloton.

25km remaining from 183km

The Ineos-led peloton lurks just 7 seconds behind the Frenchman.

And now he's caught.

The peloton are almost done with the descent. Just a few kilometres until the climb of Oropa starts.

11km remaining from 183km

Now the peloton hit the final climb of Oropa.

There are still six Ineos riders on the front.

No attacks yet, with Ineos pushing the pace on the less steep sections of the climb.

7km remaining from 183km

And now they hit the steeper section around halfway up the climb.

Salvatore Puccio is still on the front for Team Ineos.

There looks to be around 30 riders in the peloton, probably a couple less as riders drop off the back.

5km remaining from 183km

Mathias Frank (AG2R La Mondiale) puts in the first attack.

Diego Rosa, Iván Sosa and Egan Bernal remain on the front of the peloton.

Frank isn't getting much room to manoeuvre here. He has a couple of seconds on the peloton and is getting dragged back.

4km remaining from 183km

Frank is brought back. Ineos are still driving the pace.

Rosa swings off and now it's down to Sosa and Bernal.

Around 15 riders remain in the lead group.

We're basically just waiting for Bernal to launch at this point.

Sosa's pace splits tthe group and now there's just seven men up there.

The Ineos duo lead Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates), Davide Villella (Astana) and two AG2R La Mondiale men.

Nans Peters and Mathias Frank are the AG2R riders.

Martin drops back from the group.

2km remaining from 183km

Sosa powers on even more at Bernal's request. The Ineos pair have blown the rest off their wheel.

And now Bernal goes.

Bernal out on his own now. It'll take a disaster for him to lose this.

He has 15 seconds on the rest already.

He's inside the final kilometre now.

Bernal hits the cobbles. He's in the final few hundred metres now. He made this look easy.

And there we go. Egan Bernal wins Gran Piemonte 2019!

Sosa duly crosses the line for second after jumping away from the chase group in the closing metres.

Nans Peters took third ahead of Buchmann and Martin.

It really was the Ineos show today. They controlled the peloton for much of it, strangled the race over the final climbs, and then Bernal and Sosa dominated on Oropa.

It was hardly the most exciting race of the year, with just one attack before Bernal's winning effort. The race was more reminiscent of an Ineos-controlled Grand Tour stage than a semi-classic one-day race. But it was always going to happen when one team has the two best climbers in the race.

Here's the top ten. Bernal eased off a bit on the cobbles, so the gaps aren't as big as they would've been otherwise.

1    Egan Bernal (Col) Team Ineos    4:24:16
2    Ivan Sosa (Col) Team Ineos    0:00:06
3    Nans Peters (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale    0:00:08
4    Emanuel Buchmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe    0:00:10
5    Daniel Martin (Irl) UAE Team Emirates    0:00:11
6    Mathias Frank (Swi) AG2R La Mondiale    0:00:40
7    Davide Villella (Ita) Astana Pro Team    0:00:46
8    Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Neri Sottoli–Selle Italia–KTM    0:00:47
9    Clement Champoussin (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale    
10    Carlos Verona (Spa) Movistar Team    0:00:49

Bernal said that was his first race in the region of Piemonte, where he used to live. It's also his first road race victory on Italian soil. Not a bad day, then.

"I was feeling really good during the race and I asked the guys to do a good tempo. Sosa did a really, really good job – I won but I think Sosa was almost stronger than me," he added.

Egan Bernal crossing the line as he wins Gran Piemonte.

Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec have reportedly won the season-long Coppa Italia competition. This was the deciding race between them and Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia. The result is provisional, however.

Our brief race report is up here, along with a photo gallery and brief results. Stay tuned for our full report, coming soon.

We'll have news and reaction from Italy through the evening, with race winner Egan Bernal, Sonny Colbrelli and Adam Yates from yesterday's Milano-Torino

That's all for our live coverage of Gran Piemonte 2019. We'll be back with more full live coverage of Saturday's Il Lombardia!