Diego Rosa wins Milano-Torino from late attack

Diego Rosa (Astana) won Milano-Torino in Italy on Thursday after launching an attack on the race's final climb.

The 26-year-old Italian attacked on the second and final climb of Superga with two and a half kilometres still to race to take the biggest victory of his career.

Despite chases from first Wout Poels (Sky) and then Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo), Rosa maintained his advantage to take a solo win in the UCI 1.HC-ranked race.

Majka came in for second place at 16 seconds, with Rosa's team-mate and Vuelta a España winner Fabio Aru in third. Poels finished in fifth.

It's Astana's second Italian win in two days, after Rosa and Aru assisted Vincenzo Nibali to win Tre Valli Varesine on Wednesday.

The day's escape group consisted of Luca Chirico (Bardiani), Samuele Conti (Southeast), Nicolas Lefrancois (Novo Nordisk), Alessandro Malaguti (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN-Qhubeka), but the quintet were caught as Astana, Movistar and Sky chased them down before the first ascent of Superga.

Milano-Torino is the first of the three races included in the trittico di autunno, which also comprises tomorrow's GranPiemonte and Sunday's Il Lombardia.

>>> Il Lombardia 2015 preview

Result

Milano-Torino 2015, 186km

1. Diego Rosa (Ita) Astana in 4-27-51

2. Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo at 16 secs

3. Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana at 18 secs

4. Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ at 20 secs

5. Wouter Poles (Ned) Sky at 23 secs

6. Damiano Cunego (Ita) Nippo-Vini Fantini at 32 secs

7. Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) Ag2r at 32 secs

8. Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar at 32 secs

9. Daniel Moreno (Spa) Katusha at 36 secs

10. Davide Villella (Ita) Cannondale-Garmin at 39 secs