Coppi e Bartali: Filippo D’Aiuto holds off sprinters with late attack to win stage 2

With the sprint teams aiming for victory on the flat finish in Massalengo, D’Aiuto’s late attack would normally be dismissed as a no-hope bid for glory and duly caught before the finish line. However, he built a 10-second gap on the run to the end of the 158km stage, and carried an advantage into the final kilometre, where he went on to win alone, five seconds clear of the charging peloton.

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Matteo Moschetti (Pinarello-Q36.5) won the sprint for second place ahead of Tommaso Bessega (Polti-VisitMalta), while Alessio Magagnotti (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) took fourth place.

As a result of his victory, D’Aiuto takes over the race lead, with a five-second advantage over previous leader, stage 1 winner Axel Laurance (Ineos Grenadiers).

Earlier in the day, a five-man break full of young Italian Continental racers, including D’Aiuto’s teammate Kevin Pezzo Rosola, went clear to form the break of the day.

The quintet raced on until the 26km to go mark, at which point the peloton brought them back into the fold. Pezzo Rosola, with 10 mountain points during the stage, would take over the lead of the mountain classification.

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Ineos Grenadiers, Jayco-AlUla, and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe were among the teams leading the peloton towards a likely bunch sprint, though more attacks flew at the front with 21km to run.

Renato Favero (Biesse-Carrera-Premac) jumped clear along with Alexandre Balmer (Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali) and Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-VisitMalta), the group staying clear until the 8km mark.

In the meantime, the peloton briefly split, with Laurance and several other notable riders – including Max Schachmann (Soudal-QuickStep) and Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) – breaking clear at the front.

That move didn’t last long, however, and the peloton was all back together with 8km to go. That set the scene for a mass sprint finish, though D’Aiuto had other ideas, jumping clear 2km later and converting his attack into a memorable first pro victory.