Tour of Croatia: Nizzolo wins stage 1 in Varazdin

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Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) won his first race of the 2016 season on Tuesday, outsprinting Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) on the opening stage of the Tour of Croatia.

Mark Renshaw led out the sprint for Cavendish, who was positioned on Nizzolo’s wheel, but the Manxman was never able to come round the Italian on the twisty, narrow road in the final couple of hundred metres. The front two were clear by a distance, while Timothy Dupont (Verandas Williams) took third place.

"We are here to prepare for the Giro [d'Italia] and it is an important win for me and the team. I want to dedicate it to Fabio and also to Adriano Baffi who should be here with us but came down with a sudden illness," Nizzolo said.

The messy sprint came at the end of a technical finishing in circuit in Varaždin and it was somewhat anticlimactic after the riders had spent no fewer than 230 flat kilometres in the saddle since starting out from Osijek, north of Zagreb.

A breakaway formed early on, with Alexey Kurbatov (Gazprom-RusVelo), Matej Drinovic (Adria Mobil), and the Cycling Academy dup of Guillaume Boivin and Guy Sagiv, and the peloton was more than happy to sit back and let them gain a lead of over 10 minutes.

With 40 kilometres remaining, the riders approached a small rise in the road – a mere pimple on the parcours but a categorised climb no less – and Boivin skipped away from his companions to take the KOM point. That was it for the other three, while Boivin forged on alone and held his lead all the way to inside 5km, though his deteriorating form and the pace in the peloton, driven by Dimension Data and Trek-Segafredo, meant the catch was never in question.

With a good position near the front and with teammates in support, Cavendish was the favourite, but he seemed to miscalculate things as he left himself with no chance to really kick and come around Nizzolo.

For the Italian himself, it’s an all-important victory ahead of the Giro d’Italia, where last year he won the points jersey, but without ever managing to win a stage.

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