Between Varese, where the World Championships cycling 2008 took place, and the Como Lake, the Tour of Lombardy was ridden today, as usual at the end of the season.

This classic, which route goes around the lake and which is the last race in the UCI world calendar, was won by Philippe Gilbert today.

Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) had fever and didn't come to the start in Ivan Basso (Liquigas)'s place of birth.

After 26 kilometers a leading group was formed by Sergey Klimov (Katusha), Reinier Honig (Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team), Marco Velo (Quick Step) and Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mondiale).
When this leading group was about to be taken back in the climb of the Madonna di Ghisallo, at about 50 kilometers from the finish, Nicolas Roche decided to continue alone.

He didn't count on the Dutch rider Johnny Hoogerland of the Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team however. Hoogerland had a particular good condition at the end of the season as he showed especially during the last Tour of Spain. After having attacked at the front of the peloton, the Dutch rider easily bridges the gap with the Irish rider and takes a lead of almost 40 seconds.

In the descent of the Madonna di Ghisallo, 4 riders get back on the big Dutch guy: his team mate Matteo Carrara, the Belgian rider Dries Devenyns (Quick Step), the Italian Mauro Santambrogio (Lampre-NGC) and the Irish rider Daniel Martin (Garmin Slipstream).

Gustav Larsson (Saxo Bank) starts the pursuit and gets back on them a few minutes later.

In the climb and the descent of Civiglio everything changes and Gustav Larsson and Mauro Santambrogio become the two leading riders followed by the group of favourites who are trying to bridge the gap. At about 15 kilometers from the finish the Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov gets back on them, followed by Jakob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank).

The group of favourites finally takes them back at about 5 kilometers from the finish, especially thanks to the work of Robert Gesink (Rabobank) and the World Champion Cadel Evans before Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) gets out of this group. Only the Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) can follow him.

By beating the Spanish rider in the sprint, Philippe Gilbert thus wins his fourth race in row, after Paris-Tours, the Coppa Sabatini and the Giro del Piemonte. What a beautiful end of the season!!

The classification

Here's the top 10 of the classification of this 103rd Tour of Lombardy:
1/ Philippe Gilbert - (Silence-Lotto) - 5h43m46s
2/ Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) - s.t.
3/ Alexandr Kolobnev (Saxo Bank) - +0'04"
4/ Luca Paolini (Acqua & Sapone - Caffe Mokambo) - s.t.
5/ Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team) - s.t.
6/ Robert Gesink (Rabobank) - s.t.
7/ Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) - s.t.
8/ Daniel Martin (Garmin-Slipstream) - s.t.
9/ Juan Jose Cobo Acebo (Fuji-Servetto) - s.t.
10/ Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) - s.t.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Cycling general (except Tour de France) | Classics

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