Close Coppi battle ends in second for Laurance

Axel Laurance put in a heroic final-stage effort at Settimana Coppi e Bartali, sprinting to a close second place and narrowly missing out on overall victory.

Holding a slender two-second lead overnight, the Frenchman launched a brave late attack to bridge across to the lead pairing of Jayco AlUla team-mates Mauro Schmid and Alan Hatherley. 

The stage came down to a two-up sprint into Gemona del Friuli, with Schmid edging out the victory and moving into the race lead at the final time of asking. Positions reversed on bonus seconds, with Laurance just two seconds back after a great battle throughout the race.

AJ August was also present at the head of the race in the closing stages, finishing 10th on the stage and securing seventh overall.

In Flanders Fields

The INEOS Grenadiers battled hard in Belgium with an active performance in Flanders in the race formerly known as Gent-Wevelgem.

Sam Watson led the team home in the sprint as the race came back together ahead of the final kilometre. Filippo Ganna was instrumental after his huge turn helped bring back the star-studded duo of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-PremierTech) and Wout Van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike). 

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-PremierTech) timed his sprint perfectly to claim the victory. 

Ben Turner was another highly active rider but would sadly crash out of contention with 51km to go. Earlier the Brit had attacked on the first passage of the Kemmelberg, with Josh Tarling also driving the race on.