Giacomo Nizzolo wins Clásica de Almería

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A fraught, crash-marred finale in strong crosswinds in the Clásica de Alméria could not prevent Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo from claiming Qhubeka-Assos' first victory of 2021 with a finely calculated, devastating late acceleration for the finish.

Despite losing sprinter Alvaro Hodeg to a crash and Mark Cavendish then also reportedly suffering a mechanical, the remainder of the Belgian Deceuninck-Quick Step squad kept a much-challenged but consistently firm grip on the closing kilometres of the windswept Clásica, all the while retaining solid options on victory in the shape of one-day specialist Florian Senéchál.

But all the Belgian team's hard work and Senéchál's strong lead-out in the last 200 metres in the coastal finish town in Roquetas del Mar proved powerless when facing Nizzolo's ferocious final dash for the line. 

Even though the 32-year-old Italian had opted to get past Sénéchal on the longer side of the right-hand curve leading immediately onto the finish line on the broad boulevard of Avenida Juan Carlos I, Nizzolo still had the power to finish well over a bike length ahead, with Bora-Hansgrohe's Martin Laas in third.

"I never expected to start this season so well, so I'm very pleased," Nizzolo said afterwards, "it was a tricky finish, quite stressful and a bit technical in parts, and what made it really hard was the wind."

"But I got great support from my teammates when I needed it and this shows I'm in good form for the Classics too, which are my big goals of the first part of the season."

Fourth and third in bunch sprints in the Etoile de Besseges showed promising form for the 32-year-old Italian and Almería is his first victory, too since he took both the European Road-Race and the Italian National Championships in the space of a few days last year.

However, Nizzolo abandoned the Tour de France last year with a knee injury but in just his second event since last summer the Italian is clearly back on track.

Despite its hilly first half and a strong early break, hard work by UAE Team Emirates, Deceuninck-Quick Step and the Astana Pro Team further raised already high odds that the 34th edition of the 183 kilometre Clásica would come down a bunch sprint.

Locally-born veteran Luis Angel Maté made his first outing with his new 2021 team Euskaltel-Euskadi a memorable one by securing the King of the Mountains title on the race's biggest climb, the second category Alto de Celin.

But for all the Lynx of Marbella, as he is nicknamed, with Robbe Ghys (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Alex Molenaar (Burgos-BH), Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa), Oier Lazkano (Caja-Rural) and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Trek-Segafredo) collectively attempted to push their advantage out on the early series of ascents, their advantage never rose above four minutes.

The six were reeled by the halfway point of the 183 kilometre Clasica as the route headed back to the Mediterranean coastline. And the break which substituted them, comprising Savva Novikov (Kern Pharma), 2019 Vuelta a España stage winner Angel Madrazo (Burgos - BH), Samuele Rivi (Eolo Kometo and Samuele Zoccarato (Bardiani-CSF) could barely gain a minute's advantage before Astana, Bora-Hansgrohe and Cofidis began pegging them back again.

An uneasy half-hour truce that followed as the peloton ground through the never-ending 'sea' of plastic greenhouses in Almeria's coastal hinterland was suddenly broken when the race entered exposed terrain with around 30 kilometres to go.

A wave of the arm by Tim Declercq was enough for Deceuninck-Quick Step to unleash hostilities, with support from fellow-Belgian squad Bingoal-Wallonie Bruxelles seeing the two squads attempt to split, or at the very least reduce an overly large peloton in size, in the gusting crosswinds. But even as Deceuninck were upping the pace, a series of crashes in the middle of the pack, one involving Hodeg, saw the peloton shrink even more. 

Despite the difficulties in controlling the peloton on a circuit with more than its fair share of road furniture, the Belgians' solid efforts, combined with some more limited assistance from AG2R-Citroen and Bora-Hansgrohe also ensured that there were no further breakaways. On top of that one key rival sprinter, Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) was left out of the running because of a mechanical.

Then in the fraught closing kilometre, Deceuninck-Quick Step did their utmost to press home their advantage with Sénéchal. However, Nizzolo's late surge proved too powerful for any of his rivals and the Frenchman had to settle for second.