Gabriele Missaglia of Lampre led an Italian clean-sweep of the placings at Hamburg's HEW Cyclassics World Cup race yesterday. He and his compatriots filled all three steps of the victory podium, shutting out the German's at their home race. They found some comfort in Erik Zabel's 4th place, which strengthened his overall lead in the World Cup competition.

Pascal Richard and Matt Stephens of the Linda McCartney Pro Cycling Team were both occupying excellent positions as the race sped towards the climb of the Waseberg for the last time, with barely 15 of the 250-odd kilometres remaining. Pascal, easy to pick out in his new custom painted Giro helmet, looked particularly strong.The steep slopes were to be the decisive point of the race however, and the race split to pieces over the top.

Firstly, strongmen Roman Vainsteins and Johan Museeuw went clear. Museeuw's teammates Freire and Steels were Mapei's designated leaders for the race, and so he decided not to contribute to Vainstein's efforts, merely marking the back wheel of the Latvian. The inevitable slight drop in the duo's speed allowed a group of around 40 to regroup in the final 5kms. Unfortunately for Linda McCartney, their best man on the day, Pascal Richard, had crashed on the descent of the Waseberg. Not injured, the Olympic Champion was back up and on his bike in seconds, but the race-winning move had gone.

Francesco Casagrande, now ranked World No.1 after his long tenure of the pink jersey in the Giro d'Italia, launched an unbelievable attack down the right hand side of the road that left the other leaders gasping. Recognising that this could be his own ticket to glory, little Missaglia put everything into rocketing across the gap separating Casagrande from the elite group. With no more pace available from the bunch, who were already travelling at close to maximum speed, the two shot under the 1km banner holding a 10 second advantage.

A nervous sprint provided the denouement, both men looking over their shoulders anxiously as Zabel and all the others bore down on them. Missaglia had too much of a kick for Casagrande, and the pint-sized Italian took the biggest win of his career. Fabio Baldato beat Zabel to the line, making it an Italian 1-2-3.

Tayeb Braikia was Linda McCartney's best finisher in 56th. Pascal Richard, Ciaran Power, Ben Brooks, Matt Stephens and Max Sciandri all finished together in the main field, 2 minutes behind Missaglia.

"I'm not disappointed to have six finishers in our first ever World Cup race," said team manager Sean Yates afterwards. "It was worth the quick dash here from Denmark, and an extremely valuable point on our learning curve. We would have done well to have one or two finishers here six months ago, so I have to be satisfied. It would have been nice to have somebody make that front group at the death, but it wasn't to be."

Eurosport viewers may have been disappointed to find that David Duffield was on a well-earned holiday after his Tour de France duty. However, they will have been pleased with his stand-in, former World Pursuit Champion Hugh Porter. He filled the legend's not inconsiderable (yet fashionable for a man of his years) shoes with admirable ease and adroitness.