Mauro Schmid wins Settimana Coppi e Bartali opener

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Mauro Schmid (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) won the opening stage at Settimana Coppi e Bartali from a two-up sprint ahead of late-race breakaway companion Eddie Dunbar (Ineos Grenadiers).

The pair, who had gone on the attack on the Montefiore Conca hill some 27 kilometres from the line held off a reduced chase group. Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) took the last podium spot in third ahead of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) in fourth.

“We rode the last 20 kilometers together and we kept the pace high, taking out our advantage to almost one minute. I had confidence in my sprint, because I know that it’s good at the end of the day, and just waited as long as possible before kicking out. Today everything went perfect and we couldn’t have had a better start to the week," Schmid said after the podium ceremony, where he took the leader’s, points and youth jerseys.

The opening stage of Settimana Coppi e Bartali offered the peloton a lumpy 164.6km that started and finished in Riccone, and routed through the foothills of the Apennines.

Three categorised ascents broke up the route with climbs over Mondaino (3.6km at 7.2 per cent), Grotta di Oferno (2.6km at 5.8 per cent), and Montefiore Conca (3km at 4.3 per cent), located 25km from the finish line.

After several breakaway attempts, a group of four established early on to include Tom Paquot (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB), Gidas Umbri (Team Colpack-Ballan), Simon Pellaud (Trek-Segafredo), and Giovanni Bortoluzzi (Work Service) with the quartet pushing their gap out to nearly three minutes at just 35km into the stage.

Their gap ballooned to more than four minutes with Bortoluzzi, just 19 years old, picking up full mountain points over the crest of the Mondaino.

Inside the final 50km, however, the increased speeds of the peloton behind meant their gap cut to under a minute, and as Umbri fell off pace, their hopes of staying out front significantly dwindled.

Bortoluzzi, again, secured the mountain points over the Grotta di Onferno, but the breakaway group fell to pieces, and soon it was only Pellaud who remained in the race lead, caught ahead of the final climb.

It was over the final ascent of the Montefiore Conca that Dunbar escaped, initially with van der Poel and Dion Smith (BikeExchange-Jayco) close behind. However, as the race progressed toward the finish, Dunbar found himself racing for the stage win against Schmid.

“The team was really strong and did a perfect job, keeping the pace quite high on the climbs in the final 50 kilometres, so we were always in a good position. We all knew it would come down to the steep climb inside the last 30 kilometres, I was sure that you needed to be up there in the front. Dunbar went on the ascent, at which point I was suffering a bit, but I remained in the group and as soon as we crested the top, I attacked, having previously noticed everybody was looking at each other. I just went as hard as I could and nobody followed, and I soon closed the gap," Schmid said.

The chase behind was fierce with the likes of Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), Tobias Foss (Jumbo-Visma), Geraint Thomas and Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers), and Jan Polanc, Diego Ulissi and Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates), and van der Poel, among others.

The leading pair worked well together and extended their lead to 40 seconds with 20km, but that was reduced to just 20 seconds as the chase group cranked up the pressure from behind.

Schmid managed to get the jump on the approach to the finish line and took the stage win and the first leader's jersey, forcing Dunbar to settle for second place.

The racing continues with stage 2's 165km from Riccione to Longiano on Wednesday.