Italians Enrico Battaglin (Bardiani-CSF), Elia Viviani (Cannondale), Fabio Felline (Androni Giocattoli) and Giacomo Nizzolo (RadioShack Leopard) at the pre-Giro press conference(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma - QuickStep) and Giacomo Nizzolo (RadioShack - Leopard)(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Young Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo celebrated his first win of 2013 at the Tour of Luxembourg on Friday with a well executed sprint in Walferdange after an aggressive stage left just 25 riders in the front group.
The 24 year-old Radioshack-Leopard rider from Milan finished the Giro d'Italia in May and his first Grand Tour has gicen him the form to win.
Nizzolo developed on the track as an amateur but is able to combine a fast finish with the ability to survive on the climbs. In 2012 he won the Tour de Wallonie and was also third in the Vattenfall Cyclassics WorldTour one-day race. He is considered one of the new generation of young Italian riders.
He showed his ability at the Giro d'Italia by finishing second to Mark Cavendish in Cherasco and with two fourth places in other sprints. With Trek set to take over sponsorahip of the team in 2014, Nizzolo is expected to develop into the team's protected sprinter and target the Classics alongside Fabian Cancellara.
A clash with Marko Kump (Saxo-Tinkoff) on stage one at the Tour of Luxembourg left him with a broken derailleur but he got the better of the German this time to win his first race of 2013.
“To keep my form for two weeks after the Giro is hard but I’ve been very focused on the Tour of Luxembourg and I came here in very good shape. I wanted to use this condition in this race. Yesterday I had bad luck but today it was good,” he said on the team's website.
“It was not easy. Especially because the guys in the breakaway went so fast and the peloton didn’t give them much space so we all went fast the entire day. Then in the final we had the hard climb with many, many attacks."
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"The sprint, with just 25 riders left, was not in one line as we approached the finish. The Saxo-Tinkoff rider Kump went first and I went on his wheel until I started my sprint at 100 meters to go. It’s funny because he is the guy who hit my wheel yesterday and broke my derailleur so I didn’t win, but today I won and he was second.”
The Tour of Luxembourg continues until Sunday, with Radioshack-Leopard keen to win again in what is their home stage race. "This is a very important race for us. We are a Luxembourgish team so we have focused on this race and we are showing that we are motivated,” Nizzolo said.
Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
