Laurance wins steep uphill sprint at Coppi e Bartali, starring role for Visma youngster

Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali: two rivals forever linked to one another. The Italian legends were each other’s greatest enemies on the bike, but are now united in this international cycling week. As always, the Italian race has laid on some attractive hilly stages this year. The biggest names stayed away from Italy, but that did nothing to reduce the entertainment.

Certainly not for the attackers. During the opening stage, eight riders went up the road. There were quite a few Italians among them, but also Patryk Goszczurny, the Pole riding for Visma | Lease a Bike. The young talent, who turned 20 this month, developed into a natural attacker at the Tour of Oman and simply carried that on from Barbaresco. Once again, he was part of the early break.

In the Middle East he won all the intermediate sprints, and he was at it again here. He collected the most mountain points and crowned himself the first king of the mountains at this year’s Coppi e Bartali. The peloton was happy to let that happen, but started to close the gap as the kilometres ticked by. Jayco AlUla in particular began to move, with a strong line-up at the start.

With Mauro Schmid in their ranks, the Australian team also had one of the top favourites for the day. The decisive phase was loaded into the tail end of the stage, first with the climb to La Morra and then a nasty finale afterward. Shortly after the foot of the climb, it was over for the breakaway riders: the favourites could start getting ready. The climb was fairly long, but it proved not hard enough to make a real difference.

And so the peloton plunged into the descent toward the final kilometres, which ramped up unpleasantly on the way into Barolo. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe and INEOS joined the battle, and it was Laurance who proved strongest on the steep final ramps. Schmid and Ulissi had to settle for the other podium places.