Just two weeks before Milan-San Remo, Liquigas star Danilo Di Luca opened his 2007 account with victory in Milan-Turin. The 199km race was run in excellent, sunny conditions, and only took off on the ascent of the Superga, which climbs to over 600m. At the summit, Di Luca and co-escapee Mauricio Soler (Barloworld) had 20 seconds over the chasing group, which was enough to get them to the finish line with nine seconds to spare. Di Luca led out the sprint for a clean win, with T-Mobile’s Kim Kirchen taking the bunch sprint from Stuart O’Grady of Team CSC. World champion Paolo Bettini fell on the tricky descent but escaped with nothing worse than bruises and a bruised ego.
1 Danilo Di Luca (Italy) Liquigas
2 Juan M. Soler Herna (Colombia) Barloworld
3 Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg) T-Mobile
4 Stuart O’Grady (Australia) Team CSC
5 Mikhaylo Khalilov (Ukraine) Ceramica Flaminia
6 Cristian Moreni (Italy) Cofidis
pictures by Fotoreporter Sirotti
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