Oliver Zaugg the shock winner of the season’s final WorldTour race

Leopard Trek’s Swiss rider Oliver Zaugg won the first bike race of his professional career, the venerable Monument the Giro di Lombardia. Zaugg’s powerful attack on the last steep climb of the day to Villa Vergano distanced the favourite Philippe Gilbert, who was hoping to cap an phenomenal year by taking the Race of the Falling Leaves. It was the Leopard Trek team’s final race in its current incarnation.

It was supposed to be an occasion for Mark Cavendish to display his new rainbow bands during his team’s last hurrah as well. Cav is off to Sky in 2012 and most of HTC-Highroad’s riders have already found other jobs. But the World Champion did not finish Thursday’s Giro di Piemonte and said that he didn’t want to climb off at Lombaria.

The 241 kilometre route that ran by the shores of Lake Como began with a breakaway containing Johan van Summeren (Garmin-Cervelo), Mike Astarloza (Euskatel) and Yuki Arashiro (Europcar), but the race came back together on the ascent of the Ghisallo. Italian Vincenzo Nibali attacked on the climb, establishing a lead stretched to 1:40 by the time the superb descender reached the Ghisallo’s foot on the other side.

Nibali was reabsorbed by a shrinking selection of riders under the whip of Sky’s Thomas Lofkvist, trying to set something up for teammate Cummings. On the ramps up to Vergano, Zaugg bolted to the disbelief of the other riders. He crested and rode like he stole something to the finish. Irishman Daniel Martin of Garmin-Cervelo and Katusha’s Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez were the closest, respectively, to catching the astonishing Swiss.