Nizzolo wins Italian road championships

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Giacomo Nizzolo (NTT Pro Cycling) became the Italian national road race champion for the second time in his career, winning a sprint from a group of 13 riders in Cittadella on Sunday.

Nizzolo has endured a string of injury troubles since he last won the title in 2016 but confirmed his return to top form in 2020 with a strong sprint after 253 tough kilometres of racing.

The 31-year-old pipped Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck-QuickStep) to the line in a close sprint, with Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain McLaren), who opened up the sprint, taking the bronze medal.

“It was a crazy sprint. Of course, sprints are always chaotic, and it wasn’t easy to finish it off. I went really late, but I really wanted to win,” Nizzolo said.

“Since we restarted the season I have felt good. I had a good look at the course yesterday and thought ‘it’s hard but I can try and win this’. I don’t want to be selfish but I want to dedicate this win to myself a little but because I’ve worked hard over a difficult couple of years, and I’m really happy to be back at my best level.”

Nizzolo, who won a stage of Paris-Nice in March and placed 5th at Milan-San Remo a fortnight ago, looked strong throughout the 253.8km race, which featured an early loop followed by 12 laps of a 12.5km circuit that featured the Rosina climb, averaging six per cent over 2km. The last lap would also feature the short narrow cobbled climb of La Tisa, 850m at 13.5 per cent, which would have looked more at home in the Tour of Flanders.

It was on La Tisa where the first true selection was made, after an unruly early breakaway of 27 riders – formed after a group of 21 went after the original seven – had been caught with 50km to go, the last survivors being Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo).

Ballerini set a fierce pace on the climb and it split over the top, with Nizzolo, Colbrelli, Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates), Andrea Bagioli (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe), and Marco Canola (Gazprom-RusVelo) going clear. On the final climb of La Rosina, there was a further shake-up, as Alessandro De Marchi (CCC Team), Andrea Vendrame (AG2R La Mondiale), Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), Samuele Battistella (NTT Pro Cycling), Kristijan Sbaragli (Alpecin-Fenix), Giacomo Garavaglia (Kometa Xstra) made their way across to make it 13 out front, with Canola dropped.

Formolo had seemed to halt an attack at the top of the climb to wait for Ulissi to come back on, and the pair tried to attack on the flat 20km run-in, as did De Marchi. However, after a lapse in collaboration saw a chase group come to within 15 seconds, QuickStep and NTT used their numbers to drive the group to the line.

Oss led into the final kilometre before Colbrelli opened the sprint from distance. Ballerini was on his wheel and looked to make a convincing hit-out, until an advancing Nizzolo on the left came up and took the tricolore with a bike throw.