Giro dell'Emilia 2024

October 5, 2024 Coming a week before Il Lombardia, Giro dell'Emilia is good dress rehearsal for the final Monument of the season with five finishing laps going up the Santuario di Madonna di San Luca. Rain was falling but it did not limit the stars on the start list for the 215KM race with 3400M of altitude gain. Benjamin Thomas of Cofidis, Roberto Carlos González of Corratec-Vini Fantini, Ander Ganzabal of Euskaltel-Euskadi, Alessio Martinelli of VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, and José Ramón Muñiz of Petrolike made up the break and they had 4 minutes on a UAE led peloton with 76KM to race. Thomas, Ganzabal, and Martinelli crested the steep 3KM Montechiaro climb together with 62.5KM to go. Lidl-Trek rode quite hard in the peloton up the climb and trimmed the gap down to just over a minute by the top. The peloton split in half on the descent and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier piled on the pressure to keep those behind from getting back on. The three leaders were caught on the wide suburban roads of Bologna with 46KM to go and the race was all together at 40KM to go when the large split made their way back on. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep led into San Luca the first time and strung the bunch out single file. Evenepoel pulled off, allowing the pace to slow momentarily. An Astana rider attacked then Tadej Pogačar of UAE counter attacked. Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike was the only one to try to follow but Pogačar was alone. As he went over the top, Pogačar had 22 seconds on Jorgenson and 35 seconds on the rest with 37KM and 4 laps to go. It was 47 seconds through the next lap but the chase group was reduced to just 25 riders. At 2 laps to go, Pogačar had 1 minute 40 seconds back to Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and over 2 minutes to the next group of 15 riders. The gaps continued to widen through the bell lap, 2 minutes 19 seconds to Lipowitz and 2 minutes 45 seconds to a group containing Michael Woods of Israel-Premier Tech, Giulio Pellizzari of VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè and Tom Pidcock of Ineos. Pogačar crossed the line through the fog and mist for the win to take his first in the Rainbow Jersey and his 24th of the season. In the race behind, a rush from the chase group came passed Lipowitz and it was Pidcock that went through for second place and Davide Piganzoli of Polti Kometa beating Woods in for third.