Il Lombardia 2020

The road

At the start

Bergamo, a minute's silence, 30 degrees

The race of the falling leaves rolls out of Bergamo in mid-August, behind a minute's silence for the city's dead — Italy's first wave hit nowhere harder. Masks, crowds held back by double barriers, 26 degrees at the start and 33 promised in Como. Many of the usual climbers are at the Dauphiné; what is left is billed as a duel of generations, Remco Evenepoel at twenty against Vincenzo Nibali.

How it was won

1. 1176 km to go

   Eleven men and 3:40

   It takes an hour of attacking before anything sticks. Joey Rosskopf finally gets clear with ten others, and by the top of the Colle Gallo the eleven have three minutes forty on a peloton already riding into the Lombard heat.

2. 264 km to go

   The Ghisallo eats the break

   Eight and a half kilometres up from the lakeshore to the cyclists' chapel, and it hurts everyone. Dries Devenyns drills it with Remco Evenepoel on his wheel, James Piccoli is the last of the escape to be swallowed, and Fabio Aru is among those already gone. Fifty riders left, far earlier than usual.

3. 347 km to go

   Evenepoel disappears

   Off the Muro di Sormano, Nibali sees a twenty-year-old alone without a team and goes down the sweeping upper hairpins like a man settling something. The line stretches. Evenepoel is in trouble, and then he is simply not there — his bike propped against a low wall, the rider nowhere in sight, fallen through into the trees below. The race carries on down the mountain while the doctors climb down after him. He is conscious when they reach him, and on his way to hospital before the leaders reach Como.

4. 417 km to go

   Fuglsang tests Civiglio

   Four kilometres at 10% above Como. Fuglsang attacks to see who is left; only George Bennett can hold the wheel, and Aleksandr Vlasov drags himself across to make it two Astana riders against one. Nibali leads the chase until there is nothing left in him. Mollema and Ciccone crest twenty seconds down.

5. 511 km to go

   Ten seconds, and a missed gear

   Down the plunge back towards the lake, Mollema and Ciccone claw the gap to ten seconds while Vlasov rides himself inside out on the front. Then Mollema over-runs a corner, fumbles a gear change, and the ten seconds are gone for good.

6. 65 km to go

   San Fermo della Battaglia

   Vlasov sets the trio going on the lower slopes and then empties himself. Bennett attacks twice, then a third time — and the third one wakes the Dane up. Fuglsang counters with a stinging acceleration, Bennett's head drops, and that is the race.

7. 7At the line

   Como

   Fuglsang keeps digging over the top, down the descent and through the final kilometre, taking nothing for granted. A second Monument for the Dane, thirty-one seconds clear of Bennett.

The result