Il Lombardia 2010

The road

At the start

Number one, a new start, a new climb

The Race of the Falling Leaves starts in Milan for the first time instead of Varese, 260 kilometres to Como, and RCS have swapped the Civiglio for the higher, harder Colma di Sormano. Philippe Gilbert wears number one after winning here last year. Cunego, a three-time winner, has already ended his season and Gesink has gone home; Nibali, Visconti and Scarponi carry Italy's hopes into a cold, wet afternoon.

How it was won

1. 1228 km to go

   A first look at the last climb

   The break went fifteen kilometres out of Milan and already has seven minutes. The bunch comes over San Fermo della Battaglia for the first time this afternoon, glances down at Como, and turns north — everyone knowing they will be back up this road with the race on.

2. 2100 km to go

   Cold, wet, and thinning out

   The long loop round the lake is being ridden in rain and a temperature nobody wants at the end of a season. Omega Pharma-Lotto sit on the front and grind the gap down without fuss. Behind them riders are simply stopping: of the 195 who left Milan, 34 will see Como.

3. 357 km to go

   Madonna del Ghisallo

   Up from the lakeshore past the little chapel, and the race makes its first real cut. Giovanni Visconti and Vladimir Gusev jump away from what is left of the bunch and reach the remnants of the break; Michael Albasini goes clear on his own.

4. 441 km to go

   The Colma di Sormano rewrites it

   RCS have put an eleven-hundred-metre climb where the Civiglio used to be, and it does exactly what it was added to do. Albasini's lead evaporates on the upper slopes. Bauke Mollema hauls himself to the front group and then rides away from it — far too early, far too ambitious.

5. 537 km to go

   The real race, on the way down

   Philippe Gilbert takes the front of the descent to smother Vincenzo Nibali before he can start it, and the wet Sormano hairpins pull the front group into a long broken string: Gilbert, Nibali, Lastras, Zubeldia. From there to Como it is a pursuit. Michele Scarponi is the only rider anywhere who can close it, and he spends everything doing so.

6. 65 km to go

   Shoulder to shoulder on San Fermo

   Two riders, one steep and broken road above Como, and no help coming for either of them. They go up it side by side and stay there, elbows and shoulders brushing, bikes bucking on the rough surface, both refusing to be the one who sits up first. But Scarponi is paying for a bridge that cost him the whole afternoon, and Gilbert is pedalling as though the gradient is a rumour — same face, same rhythm, and then simply gone.

7. 7At the line

   Down to the lake at Como

   He takes no risks at all on the descent and still arrives twelve seconds clear of Scarponi. Pablo Lastras clips off the Nibali group for third; thirty-four riders eventually trail in, alone or in twos, faces set with cold. Two Lombardias in two years, and a second season closed without an Italian winning a Classic.

The result