Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the EMRR at the Italian National championships. In fact it's the coverage of the last lap of the final circuit, as we join the race with just 15 kilometres to go, and with a group of some 100 riders still together as all previous attacks have been chased down. The "breakaway of the day", with no "big guns" inside, stayed clear for about 200 kilometres, and gained up to 13 minutes over the field, but was later nullified. And so were all other attempts.
ISD-Neri's Alessandro Proni has been the last rider to wave white flag a few seconds ago, but he had to. The Lampre and Liquigas chasing machines just proved too strong for all escapees. The Ballan / Cunego Armada keeps dictating the pace as they are still inside the Imola car racing track, with about 13 km. remaining.
Paolini and Pozzato look on-form as they sit on the Lampres wheels while the peloton is rolling out of the track. The last passage of the Tre Monti climb (in fact a string of three small hills in a row: Frassineto, Torano and Toranello) will come soon ...
Here they are; the race hit the day's ascent for the final time. Will this passage prove decisive? Lampre's Emanuele Mori and Liquigas' Vincenzo Nibali stay in the driver's seat(s) while Bruseghin, once done with his job for the team, lost contact with the peloton.
Vincenzo Nibali puts in a strong attack. Diquigiovanni's Leonardo Bertagnolli tries to cover his move.
Cunego and Pozzato also close down on the two guys. So does Franco Pellizotti, who counter-attacks later.
Pellizotti and Bertagnolli opened up a small gap on a short downhill portion of the route.
The pairing keep an eight-second lead over a first chase quartet, while Giovanni Visconti is further behind.
The "first chasers" are Reda, Callegarin, Caruso and a CSF-Navigare rider, Canuti.
Pellizotti and Bertagnolli are joined by those four guys while Cunego, Pozzato, Nibali, Bosisio, Mazzanti and half a dozen more athletes are also on the move, but have to make up for a twenty-second gap.
Seven to go. The six leaders made it to the summit of Tre Monti. Their advantage on the Cunego / Pozzato group is down to 14 seconds anyway.
Again, those on the front are Francesco Reda, Daniele Callegarin, Giampaolo Caruso, Canuti, Bertagnolli and Pellizotti.
But the chasers, amongst whom are also fast Gavazzi and fellow Lampreman Ballan, brought the gap under ten seconds as they are coming down Tre Monti.
The front group split in two, then regrouped again, but some 15 chasers are on their heels.
TWO TO GO - And about twenty riders are together in the lead.
Skirmishes continue as we enter the LAST KILOMETRE of the race. Barring a catastrophe, it's gonna be a small bunch sprint. But watch out for solo moves in the last metres.
No moves really came in the last few hundred metres... it's a sprint and ... the winner is ...
is...
is ...
PIPPO POZZATO!!!
Damiano Cunego takes second.
Luca Paolini grabs the remaining podium place.
With four men in the front group, Lampre were outnumbering all other teams. Nevertheless they proved unable to give Damiano the leadout he needed. Cunego made a great comeback in the last metres but that wasn't enough for him to match the power of Pozzato, who won by a bike length or so. Vincenzo Nibali spent too many energies in earlier attacks, and just didn't have the legs at the finish.
And now Pippo's on the podium, finally wearing the coveted white, red and green jersey, for the first time since he became a professional rider.
Sure a good percentage of Pippo's triumph belongs to Luca Mazzanti, who did a helluva job driving the chase to the six leaders in the final lap, but worked hard for his capitano also earlier in the race. And grateful Filippo Pozzato didn't forget to mention it in his first after-win comments: "It was no easy victory at all. But I have to say a big thank you to Luca Mazzanti. What he did in the last three laps was just incredible. Then I finished off the job, but it was hard".
Damiano Cunego looked quite upset (well, we'd rather say very p****d) after crossing the line, but - at least in front of the Italian TV cameras - he denied that the reason was the poor assistance he got from his teammates on the finishing stretch. "Gavazzi and the other teammates tried and helped me as much as they could. But there was someone faster than me in the front group. I gave it a shot however, and got my umpteenth second place result in important races. It hrts a little, but that's okay, better times will come ...".
Luca Paolini, "bronze medalist" this year, had to concede defeat and congratulate the brand new champion: "It's never easy to make the gap in races like these, you know. Today's cycling is very balanced. I knew that Pippo was one of the main suspects to win the title and kept a close eye on him all the time. But there wasn't much more I could do: he just proved the strongest rider today".
Italian National Team coach Franco Ballerini also had good words for the nation's RR champion: "Kudos to Pippo, I'm very happy for him. He deserved such a victory after all those placings over the past years. I think this success will be very useful to him, especially in the Tour de France and his other upcoming challenges, because it's going to help Pozzato become more motivated and give him "that something special" he sometimes lacks".
Top 10 Places
1. Filippo Pozzato (Team Katusha) - 06h35'00"
2. Damiano Cunego (Lampre-NGC) - s.t.
3. Luca Paolini (Acqua & Sapone-Caffè Mokambo) - s.t.
4. Francesco Gavazzi (Lampre-NGC) - s.t.
5. Alessandro Bertolini (Diqugiovanni-Androni) - s.t.
6. Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) - s.t.
7. Gabriele Bosisio (LPR Brakes Farnese Vini) - s.t.
8. Massimiliano Gentili (Flaminia – Bossini Docce) - s.t.
9. Carlo Scognamiglio (Barloworld) - s.t.
10. Daniele Callegarin (Centri della Calzatura) - s.t.
More detailed results later.
