05/10/2023

Andrea Bagioli wins Gran Piemonte in boost to morale of Soudal - Quick-Step riders

Andrea Bagioli has taken victory at the 107th edition of the Gran Piemonte, sprinting to the win from a four-man group in what could turn out to be Soudal - Quick-Step's final win.

The final warmup race for Il Lombardia and for a few in the peloton the final race of their careers, many riders had taken to the startline with big hopes.

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As such the fight for the breakaway was incredibly hard. After 11 riders had initially gone clear, Filippo Ganna among them, that group was brought back and a second group of 14 riders countered.

In that group were notable riders such as Michael Matthews, Thymen Arensman, Rui Costa, Dries Devenyns and the only survivor from the original break, Sean Flynn.

Despite Matthews being up the road, it was his Team Jayco AlUla teammates who were leading the chasing peloton behind as the race entered the final 40km.

With the race exploding on the climb of the Alpette, attacks were coming from everywhere with many big names beginning to struggle including Wout van Aert and last year's winner of this race, Ivan Garcia Cortina.

As the riders crested the top of the climb, a group of 4 led the race. Davide Formolo, Rui Costa, Harold Tejada and Jonathan Caicedo with around 20 seconds over the nearest chase group being led by Soudal - Quick-Step.

With 18km to go, the leading quartet were caught by the front of the chasing group just as what had been the third group on the road regained contact at the back.

As the group began to swell and some of the fast finishers were about to get back in contact, Marc Hirschi and Andrea Bagioli attacked with Alex Aranburu and Guillaume Martin soon joining.

Into the final 3km and the leaders had extended their advantage over the chasers to 16 seconds.

Victory was looking likely to come from the quartet but with 1.5km still to go, the games had started being played.

600m to go and Martin made a testing attack that was quickly cancelled out. In the final sprint, Hirschi opened up the sprint first but was denied at the line by Andrea Bagioli.