Niccolo Bonifazio (Bahrain-Merida) collected his first victory of the season on Tuesday at the opening stage of the Tour of Croatia, outsprinting Andrea Guardini and Eduard Grosu after a long day in the saddle.
Bonifazio started his sprint already some 400 meters to the finish line, but then he realized that he wouldn’t pull through, so he slowed down a bit, letting Andrea Guardini catch him. They even had a slight contact. But 100m to the end Bonifazio pushed again, gave his best and brought the Team the first stage win in this race.
“Finally, I won, after a year and a half,” commented Bonifazio. “My last win was in Poland, where there was also a very long stage, so obviously long stages are good for me. I gained real strength just after 225 km. Team-mates brought me into very good position for the sprint. Matej’s strategy worked very well,”
“I hope to recover well for tomorrow’s another challenging and very long stage where I will start much more relaxed after the fact I won today,” concluded Niccolò, who now holds the red and the blue jersey.
https://youtu.be/PqzBfS3aiok?t=3897
Tour of Croatia 2018 – stage 1 results (Osijek – Koprivnica):
| 1 | Niccolo Bonifazio (Bahrain-Merida) | 5:45:15 |
| 2 | Andrea Guardini (Bardiani-CSF) | ,, |
| 3 | Eduard Grosu (Nippo-Vini Fantini-Europa Ovini) | ,, |
| 4 | Riccardo Minali (Astana) | ,, |
| 5 | Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 6 | Marko Kump (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) | ,, |
| 7 | John Murphy (Holowesko-Citadel) | ,, |
| 8 | Ziga Jerman (Ljubljana Gusto Xaurum) | ,, |
| 9 | Federico Zurlo (MsTina Focus) | ,, |
| 10 | Jimmy Duquennoy (WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic) | ,, |
