Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto Dstny) captured the win on stage 5 at the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali on Saturday in an exciting sprint on the Forlì Velodrome.
Koen Bouwman (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished in the lead group and secured the overall victory. He held onto his slim margin of 9 seconds over Archie Ryan (EF Education-Easypost) and 10 seconds over Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), who completed the GC podium in second and third, respectively.
“Normally, I ride as a domestique, but if I can go for my own chance, it's very nice that it works out like it did this week,” Bouwman said. “The fact that I succeed Jonas [Vingegaard, 2021 winner], is a fine bonus. I will never be able to match his other performances, but I am happy that we have now won the same race.”
The 23-year-old Belgian stage winner held off an outside surge by Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost) to score the first pro victory of his career, in the process adding a fourth podium in the five days of racing at the Italian contest. Behind Nerurkar, Davide De Pretto (Jayco-AlUla) took third ahead of fellow Italian Giovanni Carboni (JCL Team Ukyo) in the final day of racing.
"We were very attentive in the beginning. Seven riders broke away, which was good for us: none of the GC contenders were in that breakaway. This allowed us, along with Visma, to control the race. Alec [Segaert] and Milan [Donie] did a lot of work,” Berckmoes said in a team statement.
"In the final there were some attacks, as we expected. We kept our cool, and Harm [Vanhoucke] and Jarno [Widar] reacted perfectly. In the end, only 25 riders left. Sylvain [Moniquet] was there to control, Logan [Currie] stayed with me for the leadout.
"I have been able to show my abilities here. I truly feel that I have been able to take a significant step forward. I had been thinking about this victory all day. The velodrome where the finish line was set reminded me of Tijl De Decker. I would like to dedicate this win to him."
De Decker raced for Lotto-Dstny’s development squad this season, and he won the under-23 Paris-Roubaix last May. In August of 2023, De Decker died from injuries suffered in a training crash.
How it unfolded
The 157.9km hilly route opened with a 20km loop to the south that took in the Rocca delle Caminate climb, then completed five passes of a separate loop with the Polenta climb (3.5km at 5.9%) on tap, the middle three climbs providing the final mountains classification bonus points of the stage race. The final 10km returned to a flat, fast finish back into Forlì.
Before the first climbs, Alessandro Monaco (Team Corratec-Vini Fantini) opened the first attack in the first 8km. He was soon joined by Nariyuki Masuda (JCL Team UKYO), Alessandro Fancellu (Q36.5 Pro Cycling), German Darío Gómez (Team Polti Kometa), Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Sébastien Reichenbach (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Francesco Carollo (Mg.k Vis-Colors for Peace).
Lotto Dstny and Visma-Lease a Bike led the chase behind, but allowed the seven leaders to extend their lead to 2:25. Tarrozi won the first KOM while Fancellu took the top points on the second offering.
Carollo struggled to hold on to the lead group, and he was soon replaced by Carl Fredrik Hagen (Tudor Pro Cycling) who was able to bridge across.
Across the Polenta summit with 45km to go, Tarozzi held his foot on the accelerator and moved away from his breakaway companions. He was back in the breakaway fray with his earlier companions 10km later, this time Hagen launched a solo attack.
One by one the early breakaway riders were swept back into the peloton leaving Hagen to fight alone with a 40-second advantage and 20km to race. On the final circuit across the Polenta climb, Hagen’s day at the front of the race ended and Visma-Lease a Bike took up the reigns with the pacesetting as the hills gave way to flat roads, keeping Bouwman in the front group out of danger and in the overall lead.
Results
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