Il Lombardia

The new route for this year’s Giro di Lombardia will have the riders either climbing or descending for most of the final third of the race.

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The Spaniard went down near the finish line of Sunday's race and injured the same knee he hurt at the Tour de France

Contador's crash in the Giro di Lombardia allows Valverde to retake the top spot with one race remaining

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Tim De Waele shoots the 2014 edition of Il Lombardia

After a punishing season, beset by crashes, Dan Martin rises to the occasion at Il Lombardia to claim the second monument of his career

Results from the 2014 Il Lombardia

Dan Martin stuns a strong lead group of favorites with a powerful attack in the final kilometers to take the flowers at Il Lombardia

If Maxim Iglinskiy's positive EPO test is confirmed, Astana will have to sit out the Tour of Beijing, which ends the 2014 WorldTour season

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Joaquim Rodríguez aims for his third title in the autumn monument, as a WorldTour points battle brews between Contador and Valverde

With the Tour of Almaty on Kazakhstan soil this weekend, Maxim Iglinsky's positive for EPO will put Astana's commitment to the MPCC to the test

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Michal Kwiatkowski, winner of the 2014 world championships, will line up at the Giro di Lombardia for his first race in the rainbow jersey

"When he's good, he doesn't need to worry about anyone," Martinelli says of Astana's Italian leader

The big Swiss will cast a wide loop once more in 2014, and may add the Ardennes classics and the hour record to his already heavy program

Joaquim Rodríguez locks up the WorldTour in Italy before the finale in Beijing

Graham Watson is on hand to document the annual fall classic

The Garmin-Sharp rider stepped off the bike somewhere on the Il Lombardia course and slipped quietly into retirement

Il Lombardia was a mirror image of the world-championship road race — but this time, Rodriguez would not be caught

Results from the 2013 Giro di Lombardia

Despite foul weather the Katusha rider repeated his successful attack on the final climb and soloed in for the victory ahead of Valverde

The Tour de France champ is suffering from an inflamed sacroiliac joint, according to the team doctor

The only major classic of the autumn, Giro di Lombardia will see a showdown between the world championship favorites of a week ago

The official list of riders slated to compete in the Italian classic

Rodriguez, Valverde, and Nibali are seeking a victory after coming up short in the worlds road race

After speaking with Alejandro Valverde, Joaquim Rodríguez is trying hard to turn the page on Sunday's bitter worlds disappointment

The pair was among several riders to crash and/or abandon the worlds road race in Florence

Though it came without a true showdown against Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara's triumphant return to the cobbles proved his place yet again

RCS Sport cites road safety, TV viewership, and spectator events as reasons behind its move of Milan-San Remo and Il Lombardia to Sundays

Milan-San Remo, Lombardia set for move to sundays in 2014

Where does Joaquim Rodriguez's win at Lombardia rank him among Spain's classics men?

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It seems fitting that thunderclaps should accompany Rodriguez's ascent to the pinnacle of the WorldTour

Graham Watson braves the driving rain to photograph an epic Il Lombardia

1. Joaquin RODRIGUEZ OLIVER, Katusha, in 6:36:27 2. Samuel SANCHEZ GONZALEZ, Euskaltel-Euskadi, at :9 3. Rigoberto URAN URAN, Sky, at :9 4. Mauro SANTAMBROGIO, BMC Racing, at :9 5. Sergio Luis HENAO MONTOYA, Sky, at :9

Rodriguez becomes the first Spaniard to win Il Lombardia and takes the WorldTour lead from Bradley Wiggins

Belgian world champion dreams of winning at Lombardia in rainbow stripes

Movistar captain goes down with illness and will miss his shot a revenge on Philippe Gilbert in Italy

World Champion Philippe Gilbert hopes to showcase his rainbow jersey, and his resurgence, on Saturday with a win at the Giro di Lombardia

Graham Watson shoots the Race of the Falling Leaves.

Tour of Lombardy

• 1. Oliver Zaugg (Sui), Leopard-Trek, 6:20:02
• 2. Daniel Martin (Irl), Garmin-Cervélo, at 0:08
• 3. Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver (Esp), Team Katusha, at 0:08
• 4. Ivan Basso (Ita), Liquigas-Cannondale, at 0:08
• 5. Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol), Lampre-ISD, at 0:08

Oliver Zaugg (Leopard-Trek) stunned a host of favorites to claim the biggest win of his career at the Tour of Lombardy Saturday.

World No. 1 Gilbert will line up as the two-time defending champion against a field of challengers who hope to knock him off balance.

The 2010 UCI World Ranking calendar wrapped up with Saturday's Giro di Lombardia.

Lombardia will be Chechu Rubiera's last major race. In retiring, he says the state of Spanish cycling is 'sad and worrying' but he supports Contador.

• 1. Philippe Gilbert (B), Omega Pharma, 260km in 6:46:32 (38.373kph)
• 2. Michele Scarponi, (Ita) Androni Giocattoli-Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni, at 0:12
• 3. Pablo Lastras Garcia, (Esp) Caisse d’Epargne, at 0:55
• 4. Jakob Fuglsang, (Den) Team Saxo Bank, at 1:08
• 5. Vincenzo Nibali, (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo, at 1:08

Omega Pharma's fall classics specialist Philippe Gilbert has won the Giro di Lombardia for the second year in a row.

Riders will face a longer, tougher course for Saturday’s season-closing Giro di Lombardi. Can defending champ Philippe Gilbert stay with the true climbers?

This week, new world champ Thor Hushovd will lead Cervelo TestTeam at the team's final races

Photos from the 2009 edition of the Classic of the Falling Leaves

Tour of Lombardy winners since 1905

The history and romance of this weekend's Tour of Lombardy, in an exclusive excerpt from The Spring Classics.

The new world champ is delaying surgery so he can wear the rainbow jersey in Cervelo TestTeam's final season.

The Tour of Romandy gets UCI permission to add a 26th team — RadioShack — to the race.

Team RadioShack will start Lombardy after all

RadioShack is asking the Court of Arbitration for Sport for damages after the team was not invited to the fall classic, Tour of Lombardy

With four kilometers to go, it was obvious that an Italian wasn’t going to win Giro di Lombardia for the ninth consecutive year. A Belgian and a Spaniard ? Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) and Samuel Sánchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) – were 12 seconds clear of a chasing group that included three-time winner Damiano Cunego (Lampre), enough gap to end the Italian stranglehold on the season-concluding fall classic.

Saturday’s Giro di Lombardia – the “Race of the Falling Leaves” – is Italy’s long good-bye to yet another exciting, daring and controversy-filled season. In the last major European event of the 2009 campaign, Lombardia always packs an emotional and palpating punch to put the peloton to rest for an ever-shortening winter to recharge the batteries going into the next year.

Press Release

Chris Horner has signed with Team RadioShack for the next two seasons, according to an Oregon newspaper. Horner told The Oregonian that he had talked with other teams, “but wanted to stay here” — that being alongside Astana teammates Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer.

Recently crowned world champion Cadel Evans promises to honor the rainbow jersey with aggressive racing for the remainder of the 2009 season. The 32-year-old Aussie isn’t wasting any time, and will make his debut in the famed rainbow jersey on October 8 in the Coppa Sabatini in Italy. “I will try to honor the rainbow jersey even if my legs are understandably a little tired after a grueling season,” Evans said during a press conference Thursday at the Silence-Lotto team headquarters.

Behind the story there is always a greater story, one which is often missed. The Tour of Lombardy unfolded in traditional fashion: a breakaway, a gauged acceleration in the peloton, the knife-stabbing attacks that seal most riders’ fate, and then, finally, the winning attack and the defeated sprints for the places of honor. The favorite won.

Damiano Cunego won the 102nd Giro di Lombardia, the season’s final one-day classic, for the third time in his career on Saturday. Cunego – winner in 2004 and 2007 – scored the win after taking a gamble and attacking 15 kilometers from the finish at lake front of Lake Como in northern Italy. Cunego won the famed “race of the falling leaves” ahead of a hard chasing Janez Brajkovic (Astana), who reached the line 20 seconds later. [nid:84391]Cunego earned the victor’s laurels at the end of the 242-kilometer race that had been largely controlled by his Lampre team.

LAMPRE (ITA)
1. Damiano Cunego (ITA)
2. Alessandro Ballan (ITA)
3. Francesco Gavazzi (ITA)
4. Paolo Tiralongo (ITA)
5. Sylvester Szmyd (POL)
6. Matteo Bono (ITA)
7. Marco Marzano (ITA)
8. Mauro Santambrogio (ITA)
Director: Maurizio Piovani

ACQUA & SAPONE - CAFFE' MOKAMBO (ITA)
11. Massimo Codol (ITA)
12. Francesco Failli (ITA)
13. Stefano Garzelli (ITA)
14. Andrea Masciarelli (ITA)
15. Francesco Masciarelli (ITA)
16. Simone Masciarelli (ITA)
17. Giuseppe Palumbo (ITA)
18.