As it was expected a rider with a (relatively) long solo ride won the last Monument of the year. Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) attacked 18 km to go and his success was never really in danger.
From the original breakaway group – Fausto Masnada (Androni Giocattoli Sidermec),Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Hansgrohe), Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Davide Ballerini (Astana), Enrico Barbin (Bardiani CSF), Petr Rikunov (Gazprom-RusVelo), Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) and Marco Marcato (UAE Emirates) – Masnada reach the famous Madonna di Ghisallo first. He rode alongside with Toms Skujins for a while, till Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-Quick Step) joined them.
Masnada dropped, Skujind and Jungels were caught on the Muro di Sormano., but immediately a four men group started to make a gap between themselves and the rest of the peloton: Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe), Ivan Sosa (Ineos), Michael Woods (Education First), Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale), but without any serious effect to the race. At this point, Guilo Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) and also David Gaudu had a good move too, but the peloton came together downhill.
The next two riders, who wanted to chase the success without the rest of the main bunch were Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal) and Emanuel Buchmann (BORA-hansgrohe). Welles was caught first, a bit later Buchmann too.
Inside the final 20 km Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) attacked, but more importantly, Bauke Mollema rode away from the head of the peloton at 18,3 km. And he never lost his first position at the race till the end. Also, Pierre Latour was quite active again, but he could ride ahead of the peloton only for 4 km.
Reaching the last 10 km, Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ) had a good move, but not so good as Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), who started to chase Mollema quite seriously. A few km later Alejandro Valverde, Michael Woods, Egan Bernal (Ineos) Ans Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) joined him.
Inside the last 5 km, Alejandro Valverde went solo. The narrowest gap between him and Mollema was 20″, not enough to catch the Holland Team Time Trial World Champion.
In the end, Mollema crossed the finish line first, and a trio (Valverde, Bernal Fuglsang – in this particular order) followed him.
Results:
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