Finn Carrick wins season’s final monument with 28km solo attack in Italian hills
Northumberland rider becomes first Briton to win the Lombardy classic, holding off two chasers by 14 seconds on the descent to Como
Finn Carrick became the first British rider to win the season’s final monument on Saturday, attacking alone with 28km to go on the last major climb above Lake Como and holding off two chasers on a descent he had, by his own admission, ridden only once before, in the rain, in February.
The 25-year-old from Hexham, riding in his second season for a Belgian team, crossed the line in Como 14 seconds ahead of a Slovenian and a Dane who had worked together for the final 10km and gained time on every corner. “I could see them on the straights,” Carrick said. “That was the worst part. I knew they were faster than me down there and I just had to hope the straights were not long enough.”
The race, 252km from Bergamo, had been controlled by the Slovenian’s team until the final climb, where a series of attacks shed the favourite’s team-mates and left a group of nine. Carrick, who had sat at the back of the group for most of the ascent, went with 2km of climbing left and crested the summit with 22 seconds. He lost eight of them on the descent and none on the flat run to the finish.
“I attacked because I was not going to win a sprint from that group, and I was not going to win a sprint from a group of three either,” he said. “It was the only way I had. I did not think it would work. I thought it would get me a top 10.”
Carrick’s win is the first in a monument for a British man since 2020 and the first ever for a Briton in this particular race, which has been run since 1905. He had finished 31st on his only previous start, last year, and had been selected this time, his team’s sports director said, “because he climbed well at the Tour of Britain and we needed somebody who could survive the last hour. He has rather exceeded the brief.”
The Slovenian, who was chasing a fourth win in the race, was generous. “He did the only thing that could beat us and he did it at the right moment,” he said. “When he went I thought he was bluffing. He was not bluffing.”
Carrick, who took up cycling at 14 after a knee injury ended a promising schoolboy rugby career, said he would ride home to Northumberland “in a metaphorical sense” and spend the winter trying to work out what had happened. His parents, who had watched the race in a pub in Hexham, were reportedly still there when he phoned.
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