Neilson Powless wins Clásica San Sebastián in thrilling finale

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Neilson Powless (EF Education-Nippo) defeated Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Victorious) and Mikkel Honoré (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in a three-man sprint to win Clasicá Cicliste San Sebastián.

Along with Lorenzo Rota (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), the three riders broke out of the peloton on the descent of Erlaitz, about 35km from the finish.

Despite being affected by a late crash on the run-in to the finish, which saw Rota distanced from the others, the leaders were able to avoid being caught by the small group of favourites in pursuit. 

It was an unusual race that did not play out as expected. With Honore up the road, Deceuninck-QuickStep did not chase for race favourite Julian Alaphilippe, leaving Trek-Segafredo to do most of the work instead.

The advantage of over one minute that Powless, Honore, Mohoric, Rota and Powless’ teammate Simon Carr (who had been caught by the group having earlier broken clear on the Erlaitz ascent) held by the bottom of the final climb of Murgil Tontorra and it proved too much for the peloton to bring back. 

After Carr was dropped on the climb, and Rota distanced after a crash on the run-in to the finish, Powless managed to win the three-man sprint in the finale. 

“I can’t even put into words how much this means to me,” said a delighted Powless at the finish.

“Our director Juan Manuel [Garate] was so excited for us to come to this race. We didn’t have the favourite for the race, so we tried to ride the race smart. In the end, we played our cards perfectly. I’m so happy.

“My first professional victory. I’m just so happy to have taken it here in San Sebastian with a director in the car who’s a local. Every time I’ve race through the Basque Country it’s been incredible with the fans, so I’m super-happy to win in front of such enthusiastic crowds.

There were multiple crashes throughout the day, which took place in wet, treacherous conditions. The most significant of these occurred on the run-in to the finish among the leaders. Mohoric misjudged a corner and had to unclip, which caused Honore to crash into a wall, and Rota to be taken down.

“I was watching the map on my Garmin,” explained Powless when asked about the incident. “I think the guys who were in front of me were maybe too focussed on the situation of the race and not so much the road. I could see it was a sharp corner coming up that they ended up crashing in. In the end I was just happy to keep upright, and stay as fresh as possible for the end.

Mohoric managed to catch back to him 2.3km from the finish, and then Honore less than a kilometre later, but Powless was strongest in the sprint to take victory.

How it unfolded

A large group of sixteen riders formed a breakaway at the start of the 2021 San Sebastian, featuring: Lilian Calmejane, Mikael Cherel (both Ag2r Citroen), Valerio Conti, Alexandr Riabushebko (both UAE Team Emirates), Johan Jacobs, Jose Joaquin Rojas (both Movistar), Javier Romo (Astana-Premier Tech), Jeremy Cabot (Total Energies), Jokin Murguialday, Jon Barrenetxea (both Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Tsgabu Grmay (BikeExchange), Oscar Cabedo, Daniel Navarro (both Burgos-BH), Xandres Vervloesem (Lotto-Soudal) and Romain Hardy (Arkea-Samsic).

This group remained clear over the early climbs of the day, with Bizkarra being first over Urraki, and Barrenetxea cresting the Alkiza first.

They were never given enough of a gap to have a chance of surviving, and by the foot of the famous Alto de Jaizkibel 70km from the finish, their lead was down to less than 1-30.

On Alto de Jaizkibel, Romo, Cabot, Vervloesem and Murguialday went clear from the rest of the break, before Romo shortly dropping the other three to become the sole leader of the race. 

Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers did most of the pace-setting in the peloton up the climb, wanting to make the race hard for their climbers. They began to pick up stragglers from the break, but Romo managed to increase his lead to up to 1:50 at the top.

The clouds darkened and the heavens opened as the riders went up the climb, making for a nervous descent on which both Yuriv Natarov (Astana-Premier Tech) and Omer Goldstein (Israel-StartUp Nation) crashed.

In typically aggressive fashion, two-time Tour de France stage winner Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Victorious) attacked on the descent, and caught the remaining half a dozen riders from the break who were behind Romo. Unwilling to let such a dangerous rider clear, the peloton promptly brought them back, meaning Romo was left as the sole rider out front. 

The wet weather continued to cause havoc when Wilco Kelderman and his two Bora-Hansgrohe teammates Matteo Fabbro and Giovanni Aleotti all went down on the slippery roads, along with one of the race motorbikes. 

Romo hit the start of the Erlaitz climb with a lead of 50 seconds, as Jumbo-Visma increased the pace at the front of the peloton on the run-in to the important climb. UAE Team Emirates and EF Education-Nippo took over at the front once the climb began, but it was Bahrain-Victorious’s Mikel Landa who made the first attack.

With Simon Carr (EF Education-Nippo) on his wheel, Landa soon caught and passed Romo. But of the two new leaders, Carr proved much stronger, and he dropped Landa to crest the climb first.

Despite the severity of the climb, dozens of riders remained in the peloton by the top of the climb, and swelled to a bigger size as more caught up again on the descent. 

While Landa dropped back into the peloton, Carr continued to increase his lead on the descent, up to 45 seconds.

Mohoric, Honore and Rota all made their decisive move out of the peloton on the descent, with Powless marking the move for his EF Education-Nippo teammate Simon Carr. Despite the presence of Powless, they worked well together to chase down Carr, and caught him 23km from the finish.

With the five leaders holding a gap of about 50 seconds over the peloton, Trek-Segafredo’s Giulio Ciccone did a committed turn at the front of the peloton in service of his team leader, Bauke Mollema. He received no help from the team of the other race favourite, Julian Alaphilippe’s Deceuninck-QuickStep, as they had Honore up the road. 

Despite the efforts of Ciccone, his teammates and a UAE Team Emirates, the peloton struggled to reduce the gap to the leaders, which by the start of the final climb of Murgil Tontorra was over a minute.

There was another crash on a sharp corner leading up to the climb towards the front of the bunch, which might have disrupted and slowed down the chase.

In the break, Carr was dropped towards the start, prompting Powless to attack. Mohoric dragged him back with Honore on his wheel, and by the top the three were together, with Rota catching them soon after on the descent.

Ciccone attempted an attack out of the peloton on the climb, but neither him or anyone else from the peloton was able to catch up to the leaders, leaving Powless to take a surprise victory.