Bille wins GP Pino Cerami

Image 1 of 22

Belgium's Gaetan Bille (Lotto Belisol Team) got an early birthday present as he attacked in the final kilometre and rode solo to victory in the GP Pino Cerami. On the uphill drag to the line Bille, who turns 24 tomorrow, held off the charging peloton led in by Romain Feillu (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) for second place. To cap things off for Lotto Belisol, Bille's teammate Jonas Vangenechten earned third on the day, followed by a pair of Canadians, Spidertech powered by C10's Guillaume Boivin and Ryan Anderson, for fourth and fifth.

Entering the final kilometre a trio of Italians, Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil-DCM) alone in the lead, followed by Marco Bandiera (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) and Elia Favilli (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia), were still off the front after attacking from 20km out. On the tough finale, however, they came to grief and were caught and passed first by Bille, who had jumped clear of the peloton, and then the charging field.

"Today I surprised the peloton in the final kilometre and to hold off a fast man like Romain Feillu gives me great pleasure," said Bille. "The third place by Jonas Vangenechten, with whom I often share a room, completes our success. It's also nice that this selection, the 'young talents' team with Lotto Belisol, achieved such a result.

"After a good winter I looked with confidence to this season, but this result and this rapid success I had never imagined," continued Bille, who's in only his first season at the ProTeam level. "My tests said I have a good combination of speed and endurance which makes me fit for prologues and hard finishes."

Thirty kilometres into the 200km Belgian race, four riders jumped clear of the peloton to form the early break: Laurens De Vreese (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Egoitz Garcia (Cofidis), Cristiano Benenati (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia) and Brad White (UnitedHealthcare). The quartet pushed out a lead in excess of six minutes, but their escape was neutralised as they approached the 24km finishing circuit, to be negotiated three times, featuring a cobbled ascent of 14 percent.

A large, new break formed on the first lap of the circuit containing Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Assan Bazayev (Astana), Marco Marcato and Martijn Keizer (Vacansoleil-DCM), Pieter Serry (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Aleksejs Saramotins and Edwig Cammaerts (Cofidis), Yannick Talabardon and Jean-Lou Paiani (Saur-Sojasun), Pier Paolo De Negri and Thomas Bertolini (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia), Bartosz Huzarski (Team NetApp), Boy Van Poppel (UnitedHealthcare), Anthony Colin (Roubaix Lille Metropole), Alex Meenhorst and Johan Coenen (Team Differdange-Magic-Sportfood.de), Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (MTN Qhubeka), Sébastien Delfosse (Landbouwkrediet) and Boris Dron (Wallonie Bruxelles-Credit Agricole).

On the second finishing circuit four more riders joined the lead group, Tosh Van Der Sande (Lotto Belisol), Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda's), Lucas Euser (Spidertech powered by C10) and Dmitry Kozontchuk (RusVelo).

With such a large lead group riders began to attack and with 32km remaining to the finish Serry and De Negri were in the lead, 14 seconds up on their former breakaway companions, while the field was close behind and bearing down.

Early on the final lap all of the escapees were brought back and a new attack was launched by Marco Bandiera (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) with 20km remaining. He was soon joined by compatriots Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Elia Favilli (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia) and with 16km to go the trio held a 12 second lead. The escapees extended their advantage to 28 seconds with 8km to go, but as their lead began to decrease Marcato struck out on his own. He held an eight second advantage over Bandiera and Favilli entering the final kilometre, with the peloton hot on their heals. Marcato fell just short of victory the previous year, when he was outsprinted by Bert Scheirlinckx in a two-man escape, and once again the Italian would come up short.

Just as the escapees were about to be swept up by the hard-charging peloton, Bille launched a solo attack catching everyone off guard and the momentary hesitation in reaction by the field was all the time the young Belgian needed to score his first victory of the season.

Full Results