French rider Thibaut Pinot (Groupama – FDJ) won the 112th edition of the Il Lombardia, raced over a 241km route from Bergamo to Como. Second place went to Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain – Merida), while the third to arrive was Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing Team).
Speaking seconds after the race finish, the winner Thibaut Pinot said: “Among the monuments, Il Lombardia is the nicest in my mind. I’ve always wanted to win it. I’m in the form of my life but to win ahead of Nibali is something very special. I’m glad he attacked at Sormano. That was the key to success.”
“I don’t know if it was an attack from far out but I wanted it badly, so when I saw Nibali attacking, I thought it was the perfect move. In addition, with Primoz Roglic and Egan Bernal who are two strong riders, when we got a gap of 40 to 50 seconds, I understood it would be complicated for the others to come across. Clearly, this is the most beautiful win of my career. Had I been able to choose one race to win, it would have been this one. This is a true achievement. My goal was to be alone at the top of Civiglio. I didn’t want to face another duel against Nibali in that downhill.”
Second place finisher Vincenzo Nibali said: “I wasn’t hungerflat. I’ve tried to deal with myself, my legs after a breakaway from far out and it was Il Lombardia, not just another race, and the condition is what is it is. But I improved my cycling a bit especially for this race that counts a lot in my mind. I couldn’t do any more. Thibaut Pinot came out well from Milano-Torino. He’s having a good period of his season. He’s really at the top of his game and he had to in order to do something similar to what I did last year. As soon as I was about to be caught by my chasers, I sped up again because there was the will to show off and some strength left. Thus I managed to obtain this second place because of my fighting spirit.”
Dylan Teuns, third, said: “It’s a really nice result. I’m again on the podium of a big classic after the Flèche Wallonne. I can be happy today because we had two strong guys who were second and first. I had really good legs, except that I couldn’t gamble for the win because on the Sormano, the guys were too strong for me. It was a fast race because Movistar and Groupama-FDJ took the control from the beginning. They paced really hard all day. It also took quite long at the beginning for the breakaway to be formed.”
2018 Il Lombardia Results:
- Thibaut Pinot (Groupama – FDJ) – 241km in 5h53’22” average 40.920km/h
- Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain – Merida) at 32″
- Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing Team) at 43″
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