It wasn’t the result he hoped for, but Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara took tenth place as the best-placed rider from RSLT in Sunday’s quest for the rainbow jersey.

“It was a strange race. There were so many crashes and I have to say I’m very happy I wasn’t involved in any of them. My goal was to win and I come away with nothing, but I did my best and that’s how it goes in sports. I’m not super happy about this. Maybe later I can put it in better perspective. When I saw the climbers start to go, I didn’t have the energy to go with them. I’m pretty worn out now and I look forward to a holiday with my family. Looking back this was a very nice season. When I look back to this time last year and where I was, then compare that to now, I can be very happy,” Cancellara said to the RSLT website.

Taking the win in a two-man sprint was Portugal’s Rui Costa, just nipping Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain) on the finish line in Florence. Coming in third, also for Spain, was Alejandro Valverde. Rain throughout most of the day made the 272km difficult and technical course even more so, with many crashes taking out riders all through the seven-and-a-half hour effort. Chris Horner (USA) suffered some pain to his ribs and Bob Jungels (Luxembourg) required x-rays on his knee, but fortunately was cleared with no breakage. Yaroslav Popovych (Ukraine) also went down in a crash and had to abandon, but no further information is available at this time.

Riding for his native Belgium in defence of Philippe Gilbert’s 2012 win, Maxime Monfort added this about his ride:

“It was an interesting race with the weather and length of the parcours. It was very, very hard.  Belgium took its responsibility of working since we have the defending champion on our team and he was a prime candidate to repeat his effort. We did everything we could and I feel I did my job well. I was only called to the team a week ago so my preparation was short, but I did the best I could and worked hard for Belgium but Gilbert didn’t win. It ended up being more for the climbers and the GC guys from the Vuelta.”

Jan Bakelants also rode for Belgium, bringing his good form to the game: 

“Someone in front of me crashed on the descent. I touched my brakes and crashed too. I kept on sliding and then had to wait for a new bike. I lost almost two minutes but managed to come back, but then it was over.”

The UCI Worlds concluded on Sunday but racing continues in Italy with Wednesday’s Milano-Torino, and Thursday’s Giro del Piemonte.