Nizzolo strikes again at Skoda-Tour de Luxembourg

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Giacomo Nizzolo (RadioShack-Leopard) took his second consecutive victory at the Tour of Luxembourg, beating Russia's Alexei Tsatevich (Katusha) and Italian Pierpaolo De Negri (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia) in the sprint.

The 178km stage from Eschweiler to Diekirch was categorised as the queen stage with eight categorised climbs, including three climbs of the Huelewee in the final 10km lap. The 1500 metre climb contained stretches of over 20% and averaged almost 9%.

Karsten Kroon of Saxo-Tinkoff, Team Europcar's Björn Thurau and Mikhail Ignatiev of Katusha attacked after 20 kilometres into the stage. Their maximum lead was six minutes. The three arrived on the final circuit with a three-minute lead but were clearly tired. Thurau managed to take the mountain jersey but he was dropped on the final climb and then Kroon and Ignatiev were caught in the last three kilometres.

Jonathan Hivert starts the final stage in the yellow leader's jersey. The Sojasun rider finished tenth today and keeps a two second lead on IAM's Matthias Brändle and three seconds on Paul Martens of Blanco Procycling. Radioshack-Leopard's Bob Jungels is in fifth at only six seconds.

Blanco's Paul Martens started the sprint but went a little early and was beaten by Nizzolo, Tsatevich and de Negri.

"Martens had his Blanco team working for him. I was third in the last corner. It was an uphill sprint so it was very, very hard but at 300 metros from the line I was in Martens’ wheel and I overtook him in the final 100 metres," Nizzolo told Cyclingnews.

On Friday Nizzolo survived the climbs well to contest the sprint. His objectives for the third stage were the exactly same.

"My goal today was to suffer as much as possible on the climbs. I tried to follow the wheels as well as I could and died many times. When we caught the two leaders at three or four kilometres from the line, I lined up for the sprint,” Nizzolo told Cyclingnews.

The Luxembourg based team always has the Tour of Luxembourg as an important goal. In 2011 and 2012 they won the overall with Linus Gerdemann and Jakob Fuglsang. Nizzolo confirmed they have overall ambitions this year too.

"Our strategy today was to attack with Jan Bakelants and Bob Jungels. They are our GC guys,” he said.

The Tour of Luxembourg finishes on Sunday with a 143.6km stage from Mersch to the city of Luxembourg. The final stage now features the Rollingergrund climb which wasn't part of last year's final stage.

“It will be very hard. We did the climb in training and it was not easy. I didn’t know today was the queen stage and I don’t believe tomorrow will be for the sprinters like me,” Nizzolo concluded.