After a difficult start to the year, Manuel Belletti (Southeast) opened his 2016 account by winning the reduced bunch sprint in the morning stage on the first day of the Settimana Coppi e Bartali. The Italian held off Matteo Pelucchi (Italy) and Francesco Gavazzi (Androni) when 130 riders arrived to decide the race and now goes into the afternoon time trial with a 2-second advantage over Pelucchi.

After a few frustrating years at the WorldTour level with Ag2r, Manuel Belletti returned to Italy to try to revive his career. He spent a less successful season at Androni before he moved to the Southeast team which has a great history of bringing riders back on track.

That’s exactly what happened to Belletti as he had a great first season with his new team in 2015 when he won GP Costa degli Etruschi – his first race in the new colours – Ronde van Drenthe and the hilly stage 1a of the Settimana Coppi e Bartali. Unfortunately, the second half of the year was less successful and it has also been a tough start to 2016.

However, it is always a pleasure to return to the scene of past victories and that’s what Belletti did today when he started the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali by winning the morning stage on the first day for the second year in a row. In fact, it is his third win in the opener as he also came out on top in 2011. A new course meant that no one knew exactly what would happen but as always it came down to a reduced bunch sprint which suited Belletti down to the ground.

As usual, the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali kicked off with a split stage that saw the riders tackle a 95.9km course around the city of Gatteo in the morning. After a flat start with two laps of a 17.6km circuit, the riders headed to a hilly 13.3km circuit that they would cover three times. It included the Longiano climb with its cobbles and 10% gradient. The final passage of the climb came with 17.7km to go and from there, the riders descended to the finish where they did one lap of a flay 8.7km circuit in Gatteo.

Davide Mucelli (Meridiana Kamen) was absent when the riders gathered in Gatteo under a beautiful sunny sky. The new course meant that no one knew what to expect and whether it would be possible to bring things together for a sprint. Hence, it got off to a very fast start with numeorus attacks.

After 20km of aggressive racing, a big 17-rider group got clear but that was obviously too dangerous for the peloton which quickly neutralized the move. GM and Southeast were very active but no one had managed to escape when they returned to the finish at the end of their second lap of the flat first circuit.

The elastic snapped when Davide Pacchiardo (GM), Elchin Asadov (Synergy), Martin Weiss (Tirol) and Vitaliy Buts (Kolls) took off and they quickly got an advantage of one minute. Marco Tecchio (Uniero) took off in pursuit and found himself 30 seconds behind.

At the halfway point of the race, the gap had gone out to 1.30 and as they went up the climb for the first time, it reached 2.30. Here Buts beat Weiss and Pacchiardo in the first KOM sprint and Tecchio was brought back.

Team Sky took control in the peloton after the gap had stabilized around 2.30 and while Buts beat Weiss, Asadov and Pacchiardo in the second KOM sprint, they upped the pace. They crested the summit 2.23 behind the leaders but as they headed towards the final passage of the climb, the gap melted away and was down to less than a minute as they hit the ascent.

Buts also won the third KOM sprint before the peloton crested the summit 40 seconds behind. The climb made a big selection which was partly assisted by a crash.

Asadov lost contact with the leaders before Buts pressed on alone, keeping a 20-second advantage for a little while but with 10km to go, it was all back together for a sprint. Team Sky took control inside the final kilometre to set Danny Van Poppel up for the victory but he had to settle for fourth as Belletti proved to be the fastest, holding off Matteo Pelucchi and Francesco Gavazzi.

With the win, Belletti takes the leader’s jersey with a 2-second advantage over Pelucchi. He faces a difficult challenge this afternoon when he will try to defend his position in the 13.3km team time trial. It’s a mixed course with a technical first part and slightly uphill second half and it will have a special format as the teams will be split into two four-rider squads that will do separate team time trials.