Colbrelli sprints to Italian men's road title

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Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) won the Italian road race championships in a two-man sprint against Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in Imola. 

Colbrelli managed to bridge across to Masnada 28km from the finish, after Masnada had attacked the peloton 7km earlier. 

Between them, Colbrelli and Masnada caught and dropped all of the riders who had formed the day’s break, with Samuele Zoccarato (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) taking third place as the last rider to survive from it. 

The finishing sprint was no contest, as Colbrelli used his superior kick to defeat Masnada comfortably. 

Given Colbrelli’s recent run of form, the victory certainly does not come as a surprise. The Bahrain-Victorious rider has been on a hot streak in recent months, sprinting well and consistently to claim a stage each at the Tour de Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine, as well as the points classification at both races. 

But the manner of the victory isn’t quite as we would have expected. Rather than wait for a sprint, Colbrelli went out on the attack, alert to the danger posed by Fausto Masnada’s attack. 

Masnada made his move during a calm period of the race 35km from the finish, after a selection had been formed in the peloton that had whittled the race down to just the select favourites, inclduding Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) and Domenci Pozzovivo (Qhubeka Assos).

Masnada gained a large advantage, and rather than try to continue working with the other riders in the peloton to bring him back, Colbrelli set off in solo pursuit.

Colbrelli caught up to Masnada just as he reached the survivors of the day’s sizable breakaway, which had been reduced from thirteen to five riders following the work of Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè, who made up three of the remaining five.

Of those five, Zoccarato was the only rider able to hang on as Masnada and Colbrelli pushed on over the climb in the finishing circuit.

He battled valiantly, and still kept the leaders in sight even after he was dropped 14km from the finish, but was eventually taken out of contention for good.

By now Masnada and Colbrelli had a comfortable lead over the rest of the peloton, who had continued to cede time having already found themselves almost one minute adrift by the time the pair joined up together. 

Despite not having to worry about being caught by the peloton, and having a mch inferior sprint to Colbrelli, Masnada did not try an attack or gamesmanship in the finale. Instead, he chose to start his sprint early, but had no response when Colbrelli came past his wheel and stormed to victory.