Alexander Kristoff charges to victory at Clásica de Almería

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Alexander Kristoff claimed his first win for Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux, triumphing in a bunch sprint at the Clásica de Almería on Sunday. 

The Norwegiean profited from a strong leadout from his new teammates in what was a chaotic run-in. Crucially, he had the inside line through the slight right-hand bend in the final 150 metres, which was enough to hold off his rivals. 

Nacer Bouhanni, whose Arkéa-Samsic teammates had jostled for position with the Intermarché riders, took second place after sprinting out of Kristoff’s slipstream. 

Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel-Premier Tech) had to go much wide around the bend and paid the price, having to settle for the lower step of the podium. 

Stanislaw Aniolowski (Bingoal-WB) produced a powerful late surge on the inside to claim fourth place while Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) rounded out the top five after taking the wide path.

"It was a great day for me," Kristoff said. "We have a good team for this type of race, and we managed to keep it together in the finale. It was quite technical with lots of roundabouts but we held a good position thanks to the team. 

"In finale I had a lot help from [Andrea] Pasqualon [Adrien] Petit and [Dmitri] Claeys, so I came into the final straight in the best position. It was a headwind so was maybe a little bit hard to take it from the front, but I still had the legs."

The 37th edition of the Spanish one-day race once again took riders through the Almería region of southern Spain, with its blue waters and its sea of plastic greenhouses responsible for much of Europe’s vegetable production. 

The route packed some inland hills into the first half of the race but was practically flat for the second half, making a bunch sprint the likely outcome. 

Lukas Postlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe, Xabier Mikel Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi), and Gilles De Wilde (Sport Vlaanderen Baloise) animated the race with a three-up breakaway but never looked like causing an upset. De Wilde was dropped with more than 40km to go, while Postlberger and Azparren lasted until just inside the 20km mark. 

At that point, the wind had threatened but wasn’t doing any real damage, and it was a slow wind-up for the sprint, with two crossings of the finish line before the real deal. 

Israel-Premier Tech took control heading into the final kilometre but Arkea-Samsic muscled their way up on the left and Intermarché punched through on the right. Kristoff even raised his arm to touch Simone Consonni (Cofidis) and prevent him from slipping into his train, and might consider himself fortunate to have got away with it. 

The race continued and Kristoff had a strong two-man lead-out, taking the crucial first position through the right-hand roundabout exit in the final 400 metres. Kristoff then had another rider to take him to 150 metres, where the road bent round to the right again. Up against the barriers, he held firm to hold off Bouhanni, while the rivals who swarmed from the left-hand side of the road but had left themselves with too much to do.