Taborre wins in Cesenatico

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Fabio Taborre (Acqua & Sapone) took his second win of the year and the second victory of his career at the Memorial Pantani race, beating Davide Rebellin (Miche Guerciotti) and Daniel Martin (Team Garmin Cervelo) with a well-timed sprint.

Taborre was part of the key 15-rider breakaway that formed on the last climb and he still had the speed in his legs to win in the center of Cesenatico after other riders joined the move. Only 54 riders finished in the late summer heat in Italy.

The one-day race remembers Marco Pantani, who died of a cocaine overdose in 2004, just a few years after his double success in the 1998 Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. The race attracted a big-name field, with Alessandro Petacchi and Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD), Vincenzo Nibali and Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Italian national champion Giovanni Visconti (Farnese Vini-Neri) all on the start list.

A hard race in the heat

Nibali was the first to attack after just 20km of racing, despite the heat of the later summer in central Italy. He was joined by Davide Ricci Bitti (Farnese Vini Neri Sottoli), Alberto Contoli (Colnago Csf Inox) and Davide Torosantucci (D'Angelo & Antenucci Nippo), and they quickly opened a three-minute lead. Nibali then attacked alone on the third time over the Montevecchio and was joined by 13 riders, including teammate Ivan Basso, Miche Guerciotti duo Davide Rebellin and Stefan Schumacher, Vuelta winner Juan Jose Cobo –in his first race since winning in Madrid, Visconti and Scarponi.

The race then left the hills for laps of a finishing circuit in Pantani’s home town of Cesenatico on the Adriatic coast. Here the other riders managed to get back on, boosting the front group to 27 riders.

Taborre had support from Alessandro Donati and Alessandro Proni in the finale and used his speed and positioning to beat Rebellin and Martin.

Many of the riders in the race will now head to Tuscany for the Coppa Sabatini on Thursday and then the Giro dell’Emilia in Bologna on Sunday.

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