Il Lombardia 2015

The road

How it was won

1. 164 km to go

   The Ghisallo lights the fuse

   Past the chapel of the cyclists' Madonna a placid race turns feral. Benedetti and Canola shed the last of the morning break while Kwiatkowski, Wellens, Gesink and half a dozen others set off after them.

2. 250 km to go

   The Muro di Sormano

   Nineteen hundred metres of goat track at up to 27 per cent, the gradients painted on the tarmac like a countdown. The field almost stops; Nibali picks his way to the front of it, and up ahead Kwiatkowski eases past the leaders with Wellens scrambling to hold him.

3. 317 km to go

   Nibali goes up the middle

   Astana have burned the race down to seven riders, and as the last of the domestiques peels off Nibali throws himself up the middle of the group with seventeen kilometres to go. Near the summit of Civiglio the elastic finally snaps.

4. 411 km to go

   The descent that wins the Monument

   This is where it is decided. Nibali drops off the Civiglio like a man who has already ridden this road in reconnaissance — because he has — hanging off the outside of hairpins slick with October damp, taking the racing line where nobody else dares. He starts the descent with a handful of seconds. He reaches the bottom with forty, and behind him the chase has already lost the argument.

5. 55 km to go

   Moreno alone in pursuit

   Inside the last six kilometres Daniel Moreno closes down Pinot's move himself, then kicks again on the steeper ramps of San Fermo and drops the Frenchman. For a moment it looks like only a question of time.

6. 6At the line

   Nibali's first Monument

   Down to the lake and along the Como waterfront, Nibali has enough road to sit up and celebrate over the last 300 metres. Moreno takes second, Pinot third, and the Sicilian finally has a Monument.

The result