It's a beautiful day in the pocket country of San Marino. The race begins with about a 10 km descent so the riders take a safety first approach, but now the battle for the breakaway begins.
The break gets established quite easily as we have a group of 9 containing the following riders:
Ruvalcaba Reyes Pickering Vera Hernandez Bagnara Johnson Rodriguez Gomez Gaze Crowley
About 30 km into the race we enter a circuit that will be used 5 times before heading into a different direction and then returning to it before the finish.
The breakaway has almost 4 minutes on the peloton which is being led by Bianchi, Kraftwerk, Tafjord and Euskotren.
We fast forward all the way to 60 km to go. The breakaway has left the circuit and is about to start the longer climb that heads into town.
About the halfway point of this climb is where the finish line is. The peloton crosses it a little under 2 minutes behind the breakaway. The peloton has also already shrunk in size down to 58 riders. Some of the names not here include:
Lazkano Zordan Filutas Schönberger Holmes Montenegro Carr
Less than 50 km now. Tafjord are setting a tempo here on some of these short, sharp hills. It looks unlikely that the bigger group behind will make it back here.
40 km to go. Tafjord continue to force the issue. This time Dyrnes puts in an attack.
The attacks don't go anywhere, but the pace is upped again and the breakaway is just about to be caught.
The breakaway being caught is the perfect launchpad for some riders. Gladysh attacks as Ethiopian is looking to use its great depth of riders.
Hoelgaard is the next one to try his luck. There are still nearly 30 km to the finish. We're back on that circuit which has to be raced 3 times before the final climb to the line.
It's a hectic part of the race with many riders looking to make a daring move. Masnada is following closely at the very front. Meanwhile Bianchi's leader Smith has his teammates keeping everything under control so far.
Attacks keep rolling through, this time it's one of the favourites in Sagan trying his luck.
With 20 km to go we are down to a group of 30 riders. Apart from the riders mentioned before the bigger names are all here.
This is the 2nd to last sharp climb before the finishing one. Smith hits the front, it's not a full attack, but he wants to soften up this group even more.
Hoelgaard counters with Lafay on his wheel. The group behind is thinned with every acceleration. Svab and Stocek are two names not among them.
Masnada did a bit of work, but right now no one is fully committed to catching the front two. Smith is out of helpers.
Gladysh takes the front. Kraftwerk might be looking at Gall for the finish. There are 9 km left and the front of the race is 40'' ahead.
Penultimate climb of the race and at the front Hoelgaard drops Lafay!
The favourites are looking at each other! No cohesion at all, this is perfect for the Norwegian!
Lafay is not out of this, he's in touching distance of Hoelgaard.
The two leaders start the final climb to the line. Hoelgaard has a 14'' gap.
Under the flamme rouge, Hoelgaard maintains his lead. The Kraftwerk duo are heading up the group behind. Probably a fight for 3rd coming there.
400 m left. Hoelgaard is still going strong, but Lafay is caught by the others.
Daniel Hoelgaard does slow down at the end, but it's enough to keep the others at bay. The Norwegian takes the victory!
Gall finishes ahead of Smith for 2nd place. 4th and 5th goes to the Euskotren duo Berthet and Lafay.
Sagan finishes 6th followed by another veteran Kwiatkowski. 8th place goes to Petelin which again shows how well climbers tend to do in this race. Vincent is 9th and the top 10 is rounded out by Serrano.
I don't think we can have any complaints about the winner. Tafjord attacked this race from the start all the way to the finish. Let's give a round of applause one more time for the 2025 Coppa Placci winner Daniel Hoelgaard!
Coppa Placci 
