Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEDGE) continued his amazing debut season when he won today’s hilly Italian one-day race GP Industria. In an exciting finale, he escaped with fellow talents Davide Formolo (Italian national team) and Francesco Bongiorno (Bardiani) and after the latter had fallen off the pace, he beat the former in a sprint to take his third win since turning professional.

Adam Yates continues to prove that he is one of the brightest talents in the cycling world and today he again added to his growing palmares when he won his first big one-day race, the hilly GP Industria in Italy. The Brit used a combination of great climbing legs and fast legs to take his third win of the season.

The race ended up as a battle between three of the biggest talents as Yates, Davide Formolo and Francesco Bongiorno escaped on the final climb. The latter was unable to keep up with his companions on the descent and so it came down to a two-rider sprint where the Brit emerged as the fastest.

The race took place over 199.2km around the city of Larciano and was divided into two parts. First the riders tackled four laps of a flat 22km circuit and in the finale, they did four laps of a harder 27km circuit that included the 10km San Baronto climb.

As it is usually the case in Italian one-day races, the start was extremely fast and it took more than an hour raced at an average speed of more than 50kph before the early break was established. Wanty, Androni, Colombia and the Italian national team were particularly active and at one point, the group even split in two.

Things came back together and things settled down a bit when 8 riders took off.  Matteo Spreafico ( Team Idea ), Diego Rosa ( Androni Giocattoli - Venezuela ), Lorenzo Trabucco ( Nankang - Fondriest ), Juan Pablo Valencia Gonzalez ( Team Colombia ), Gianluca Leonardi ( Area Zero Pro Team ), Frederik Backaert (Wanty - Groupe Gobert), Moreno Giampaolo ( Vega - Hotsnd ) and Paul Illenberger ( RC Goumetfein Wels ) were allowed to take off but as the Italian national team continued to ride pretty fast, they never got much of an advantage.

With Filippo Pozzato doing much of the pace-setting, the gap reached a maximum of 3.15 but in the run-in to the first passage of San Baronto, Wanty, Orica-GreenEDGE and Neri Sottoli took over which caused the advantage to come down. While Illenberger and Trabucco were dropped on the ascent, Orica applied the pressure and at the top, the peloton had split in two.

Things came back together but as it was now raining heavily, the nervous peloton continued to ride fast and at the bottom of the climb, Giampaolo was the last escapee to get caught. Gianfranco Zilioli (Androni) and Yuri Filosi (Italy) escaped on the climb but they were picked up by a strong 13-rider group to form a 15-rider lead group including the likes of Formolo, Bongiorno and Matteo Rabottini.

Four riders bridged the gap but Orica-GreenEDGE were chasing hard as they had missed the move. Antonino Casimiro Parrinello (Androni Giocattoli - Venezuela), Tilegen Maidos (Continental Team Astana) and Jerome Baugnies (Wanty - Groupe Gobert) escaped and as the rest of the big escape was caught, they were joined by Davide Villella (Italy).

During the penultimate passage of the climb, more riders bridged the gap until a 29-rider group had formed. From this group, 11 riders – including Formolo, Bongiorno and Rabottini – escaped but after a few attacks, there was a regrouping and a 40-rider group hit the climb for the final time at the head of the race.

Parrinello was the first to attack but he was passed by Yates, Formolo and Bongiorno who crested the summit with a 9-second advantage over Parrinello, Zilioli, Firsanov and Baugnies. From there, it was a fierce pursuit between the two groups and Bongiorno fell off the pace from the first one on the descent.

Formolo and Yates managed to stay away and the Brit had no trouble winning the final sprint. Bongiorno finished third while Baugnies beat Parrinello in the sprint for fourth.

Most of the riders will be back in action in tomorrow’s Giro della Toscana which is less hilly and should be more suited to fast riders with solid climbing legs.