SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, 11 August 2003 — Italy’s Paolo Bettini won his second World Cup race in a row and his third of the season with a masterful performance in the San Sebastian Classic on Saturday.
Bettini, who won the Milan-San Remo at the start of the season as well as last week’s Cyclassics event in Hamburg, outsprinted compatriot Ivan Basso in the final stages of the 227-km race. The victory also allowed last year’s overall World Cup champion to overhaul Belgium’s Peter van Petegem at the head of this season’s standings with three races left.
Van Petegem finished well down the field after cracking on the first category climb to Alto Jaizkibel and is now 97 points behind Bettini, while Dutchman Michael Boogerd is a further 39 points back in third.
It was a great day for the Italians, who also cleaned up the minor places with Danilo di Luca, Francesco Casagrande and Andrea Noe in third to fifth positions. A shadow was cast over the race, though, by the death of one of the race officials after he crashed his motorbike on a roundabout in Azpeitia as he opened the way for the riders.
The day began with an early break by a quartet of riders just 11 km from the start.
Spain’s Jose Garcia Costa, Frenchman Nicolas Portal, Leif Host of Belgium and German rider Jorg Jaksche worked well together in the searing heat and opened a gap of more than 15 minutes over the peloton by the 50-km mark.
The quartet maintained a comfortable lead for the next 100 km, until Garcia Costa made an ambitious solo bid for victory.
But the Spaniard’s attack sparked the peloton into life and they increased the pace before the decisive climb to Alto de Jaizkibel, some 36 km from the finish.
After biding his time in the middle of the pack, Bettini powered to the front of the peloton on the tough early slopes of the ascent. The chasing pack was quickly whittled down to a group of nine riders, including former race winners Davide Rebellin and Casagrande.
The group managed to overhaul Garcia Costa on the descent from Jaizkibel, but with little co-operation between the riders Bettini decided to attack again with just over 14 km to go with Basso the only rider following him. Bettini, though, was too strong and kept up the relentless pace until the final kilometer before he unleashed a final burst that left his younger rival in his wake.
