European Championships: Nizzolo wins elite men's road race title

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Giacomo Nizzolo (Italy) claimed the European Continental Championships Road Race in a nail-biting sprint ahead of Arnaud Demare (France) and Pascal Ackermann (Germany).

Nizzolo, who won the Italian national championships last weekend, benefitted from an excellent lead-out from his teammates, to secure their nation’s third straight title in the race.

The race was an aggressive affair with countless attacks all the way through the lumpy course in Plouay, France but the Italians were tactically perfect, using the likes of Matteo Trentin – a former winner in the race – to mark countless attacks before providing Nizzolo with an excellent lead-out in the final. 

Davide Ballerini helped make the difference, helping to drop Nizzolo off with just over 150m to go while Demare and Ackermann were forced to ride without teammates in the sprint. 

The win continues Nizzolo’s excellent season and ensures that the 31-year-old will wear the European jersey at the Tour de France later this week.

“It’s been an incredible day. I had an amazing lead-out from the team but honestly all day they worked perfectly. It was really close and I thought I didn’t do a good jump but in the end I was lucky,” Nizzolo said.

“I lost this race by this much a few years ago but today I won and I’m so happy. We had a plan that if we were all together on the final lap that we should go for sprint. That’s what we did. I’m so proud of the team. We did an unbelievable job. Now I’m going to go to the Tour de France with this jersey.”

Mathieu Van der Poel (Netherlands), who had been active throughout the race, started his sprint from too far back and was forced to settle for fourth.

How it unfolded

Pawel Bernas (Poland), Andreas Miltiadis (Cyprus), Dusan Rajovic (Serbia) and Emil Dima (Romania) established an early four-man break but their lead never extended beyond a few minutes with the Italian, Dutch and French controlling the peloton.

With 54km to go only Bernas remained as Van der Poel set about trying to break up the field for the first time. Sep Vanmarcke then put in a huge turn that caught Bernas and reduced the main field to less than sixty riders before Bernas went on the attack once more with another three riders.

They were soon joined and then dropped by Jasper Stuyven, with the French team attempting to bring the race back together.

Van der Poel made a series of stinging attacks inside the final 30km with Greg Van Avermaet also looking to break up the field. At that point there were too many strong teams and even when Sven Erik Bystrøm and Matteo Trentin clipped off the front the pair only enjoyed a short lead before being caught.

Van der Poel went again with a group including Bystrøm and Trentin with 18km to go but once more then peloton persisted and only Markus Hoelgaard (Norway) was able to establish any daylight in the closing 10km. With just the final climb up the Cote du Pont-Neuf to come, Italy set a blistering pace that ensured that no one could move clear, but once Hoelgaard was caught there was a last-minute surge from Tom Pidcock (Great Britain) and Rui Costa (Portugal) but Trentin snaffled them up inside the last two kilometres before his Italian teammates finished the job with another convincing win in a race they have come to dominate.

Highlights