The Tuesday before Lombardia
The Tre Valli Varesine is where the Italian autumn stops pretending to be a warm-up. 196 km from the textile museum in Busto Arsizio to Via Sacco in Varese, 3,100 metres of climbing, six laps of a 15.9 km circuit over the Montello (2 km at 5%) and the Ronchi (1.9 km at 5.3%, the climb the 2008 Worlds made famous), then two laps of a longer 31.4 km loop that adds the Oltrona al Lago wall — 300 metres at 10% — and runs it straight into Barasso, 900 metres at 8%, with 16 km still to ride. Last year Tadej Pogačar won it alone in the rainbow jersey. This year the rainbow jersey belonged to Brandon McNulty, Pogačar was still mending the collarbone from his Vuelta crash, and Remco Evenepoel, pencilled in after winning the Euros, didn’t start. Which left a 105th edition with no obvious boss and a field — Pidcock, Jorgenson, Simmons, Healy, Hirschi, Mas, Piganzoli fresh from winning the Giro dell’Emilia — that looked like Saturday’s Lombardia start list with the numbers taken off.
Seven minutes, a motorbike and a pile-up
Five riders went early: Noah Ramsay, Fabian Weiss and Matteo Turconi — born in 2007, from Busto Arsizio, racing past his own front door — with Tommaso Nencini and Kyrylo Tsarenko bridging to make five, and the gap out to seven minutes by kilometre 50. Behind them the race had already turned ugly in a way that had nothing to do with racing: a police motorbike drove the wrong way down the course and into two Pinarello–Q36.5 riders, Marcel Camprubí and Thomas Gloag. Camprubí got up and carried on; Gloag’s day ended with stitches in his knee. “First of all I wanted to stop racing myself,” Pidcock said afterwards. “I was mad. The guys all riding in front of me, for me, and two of them on the floor.” Two months after Finlay Tarling’s death, vehicles in the race convoy are not a footnote any more, and nobody in Varese treated it as one. Then, at the end of the first long lap and in sight of the finish line, a crash took down Luke Plapp, Lorenzo Fortunato, Quentin Pacher and Henrique Bravo — the Soudal Quick-Step neo-pro who had won the under-23 Lombardia only days earlier — and all four were out.
Honoré, Simmons, Piganzoli, and a world champion who tried
The break died on the first time up the Oltrona wall, where Mikkel Honoré rode across to its last two survivors and straight past them with 44 km to go. He rode alone for the best part of 20 km before Quinn Simmons and Davide Piganzoli bridged across with 28 km left, and the three of them had 21 seconds on the second long lap — never more, because UAE were riding for McNulty, Visma had a man up the road and were happy, and Movistar were chasing for Enric Mas. It all came back on the final pass of Oltrona and Barasso with around 16 km left, and that is where the race got interesting. Simmons had one last go. Then McNulty attacked in the rainbow jersey, put the whole group in a line on the Barasso ramps, and couldn’t make it stick — exactly the move that won him Montréal, on a hill that was two minutes too short for it. Filippo Zana tried with Ben Healy and Benoît Cosnefroy. That was shut down too. And in the lull after it — the one moment in the afternoon when everyone was looking at everyone else — Tom Pidcock hit out with the biggest acceleration of the day, roughly 13 km from the line. Only two riders could follow: Matteo Jorgenson, and a 20-year-old Belgian in his first season as a professional.
The argument, the gap, and the standstill
What followed was the oldest three-man drama in the sport. Jorgenson sat on. Pidcock gestured, shouted, gestured again; Jorgenson counter-attacked instead, didn’t get away, and only then — reportedly after a word from the Visma car — started to pull. Behind, Visma did what Visma did at the Worlds: disrupted every chase, sat on McNulty, and made Movistar and Astana do the work. The gap went 15 seconds at 13 km, 22 at 10, 31 seconds over the last time up the Ronchi, and 30 into the final kilometre, where McNulty, having found no allies, was chasing alone at 2 km to go. Then the trio did what trios do on Via Sacco: they almost stopped. A near track-stand inside the last 500 metres with the bunch five seconds back, Pidcock refusing to lead, Widar forced to the front, and then Pidcock — the fastest proven finisher of the three, second at the Emilia at the weekend, surely the favourite — going to the front himself for the last few hundred metres, Jorgenson on his wheel, Widar third. “I knew I had to start my sprint from the back,” Widar said. “If I start from far back and I have a gap, my 20-second power is pretty good.” At 250 metres he came off Jorgenson’s wheel and the gap was open before Pidcock had looked round. Pidcock jumped, saw it, and sat up. The timekeepers gave Widar a second. Simmons led the bunch home three seconds later.
Who the kid is
If the name doesn’t ring a bell yet, that is only because the professional wins column said zero until this afternoon. Jarno Widar won the Giro Next Gen in 2024, the Giro della Valle d’Aosta twice, and two stages of last year’s Tour de l’Avenir — both with final-kilometre attacks that beat Paul Seixas. Lotto–Intermarché moved him up this year, sent him to the Vuelta for a Grand Tour debut, and watched him attack out of the chase group in Andorra to finish second behind Pogačar on the race’s first mountain stage. He’d already shown the move once, in Burgos, where he went too early and Onley got him. Today he went at exactly the right time, against the one rider in the race everyone assumed would win a sprint from three, and his verdict on Pidcock was two words and an expletive: “He was f*cking strong today.” On the teamwork: “Pretty good, even though Jorgenson didn’t ride at full speed from the start. But everyone has their own strategy.” On the finish: “In the end, it just came down to who had the best sprint.” Which, for the first time since he turned pro, was him. He is signed to the end of 2028. That contract looks cheap tonight.
The top ten
- Jarno Widar (Lotto–Intermarché) — 4:34:26
- Tom Pidcock (Pinarello–Q36.5) — s.t.
- Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) — s.t.
- Quinn Simmons (Lidl–Trek) — +0:03
- Marc Hirschi (Tudor) — s.t.
- Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) — s.t.
- Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana) — s.t.
- Ludovico Crescioli (Polti VisitMalta) — s.t.
- Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) — s.t.
- Simone Gualdi (Lotto–Intermarché) — s.t.
In the grupetto
Jorgenson, cramping on the last climb, happy with third, and honest about the sprint: “I tried to think about what sprinters do. Should I look back, go early? They call that fake it till you make it.” The grupetto salutes a man who faked it to the podium and then congratulated the winner “with a laugh” — and who heads to Lombardia saying his best result there “won’t be too hard to achieve”. (It’s 23rd. He’s right.)
Turconi, the teenager from Busto Arsizio, who got to ride seven minutes clear of the world champion through the streets he grew up on. Crescioli, eighth here after second at the Matteotti, quietly having the Italian autumn of his life. Gloag and Camprubí, who had the worst kind of day through no fault of their own. And McNulty, who attacked, chased alone, and crossed the line outside the top ten in a jersey that makes every chase his responsibility and every rival’s excuse — Montréal taught the peloton that the rainbow jersey can be beaten by letting it ride, and Varese was the first exam.
Moral of the story
Pidcock did everything right: made the move, won the argument, went to the front and led into the straight as the fastest man in the race. He lost to a rider who had decided before the finish what the finish would be. The grupetto’s moral: when everyone knows who the best sprinter is, the sprint belongs to whoever refuses to wait for him. Widar went from the back at 250 metres because that is what the back is for. First pro win, from a kid who was second behind Pogačar six weeks ago and second behind nobody today. Lombardia is Saturday, 239 km from Bergamo to Como over San Fermo twice. The start list just got a name on it.
