Giacomo Nizzolo has taken his first victory since the Abu Dhabi Tour in October, 2016 by winning the final stage of the Vuelta a San Juan on Sunday. Argentinean rider Gonzalo Najar (Sindicato Empleados Públicos of San Juan) hung on to win the race overall.
The final stage was a flat circuit race expected to end in a bunch sprint and when the breakaways were caught with nine kilometres, it was all set up for the fast men.
In the final five kilometres, Nizzolo’s Trek-Segafredo team mates swarmed the front, making sure that the Italian was well protected, and the savvy Nizzolo finished off the final kilometre to perfection, outsprinting Quick Step Floors duo Maximiliano Richeze and Álvaro José Hodeg.
After a frustrating 2017 plagued with injury, Nizzolo was delighted with his win.
“I am, super happy, and the team today was great, they took the responsibility to control the race since the beginning. I have to thank the team for believing in me.”
“In the end, I found the right timing for the sprint and everything worked out pretty well. It means a lot to win again after what happened last year… Yeah, I am pretty happy. For sure this has given me high morale to keep working even harder to come back to 100 percent.”
Nizzolo clinched the team’s fifth win in six days, adding to teammate Ryan Mullen’s time trial triumph in stage three and to John Degenkolb’s (2) and Toms Skujins’ victories in the Challenge Mallorca.
Nizzolo commented on the team’s hot streak:
“There’s not much to say – it just shows that we have all done our homework over the winter. There is no secret; we have just done a lot of hard work, and I hope we can continue this like forever!”
