Today BORA – ARGON 18 began a series of five consecutive races with the Italian semi-classic Tre Valli Varesine. Starting in Busto Arsizio, the race led the pros over 200 kilometers through the Lombardy to Varese. After a stretch of 83 kilometers a finish lap of 12 kilometers had to be raced nine times.

The first big leading group with 18 riders was caught again on the first lap already. Shortly after, a trio around Cesare Benedetti attacked. After many favorites had bridged, Benedetti attacked again with some riders. After the third lap only a duo remained in front and the peloton calmed down for a while. The gap increased to nearly three minutes before the chase began. With 40 kilometers to go, the chasers were as close as a few seconds and Benedetti attacked again. New attacks led to constantly changing race situations with three laps to go. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) made the decisive attack with 3 kilometers to go and soloed to the race victory.

"Cesare rode a very strong race. He was several times in the group and he attacked again in the penultimate lap. Unfortunately, he was caught. He had to pay for the attacks and missed some energy in the finale. But this active racing was exactly the right way today. Otherwise, it was a classic elimination race. Some of our riders had health problems after the Italian race block two weeks ago and so we are now looking day by day. Tomorrow comes a mountain top finish at Milano-Torino and for the Giro del Piemonte on Friday we expect a tough race similar to the one today", commented Enrico Poitschke after Tre Valli Varesine.