Sky's Michal Kwiatkowski sprinted to victory in Saturday's Clasica San Sebastian, proving quickest to the line out of a select group of late escapees in the hilly one-day race. Lotto Soudal's Tony Gallopin was second across the line for runner-up honours, with last year's winner Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) rounding out the podium in third.
Kwiatkowski's teammate Mikel Landa forced a crucial selection going over the short but steep final climb, attacking and pulling Gallopin and Mollema with him to form a select trio in the closing kilometres. Kwiatkowski joined up with Sunweb's Tom Dumoulin to bridge across to the group, setting up a five-rider battle in San Sebastian.
A late surge by Landa allowed Kwiatkowski to follow the wheels of his rivals into the final kilometre, paving the way for a sprint as the quintet regrouped. Kwiatkowski won convincingly, taking his third WorldTour one-day race victory of the season after winning Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo in the spring.
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"Such amazing Basque Spanish guys in the team today," Kwiatkowski said after the finish, acknowledging not only Landa, but also Mikel Nieve, who fired off an attack with around nine kilometres to go just after a solo move by teammate Gianni Moscon was reeled in.
"They were supporting me so well and I'm very thankful to the team. You could see Mikel Landa playing his crucial role in the end, and I could go for the sprint easily. I'm very thankful to Mikel that he waited in the group in the front. Today was just amazing, the team spirit, we believed that we could win the race."
How it unfolded
The lumpy 231km race kicked off under clear conditions in San Sebastian, with a seven-rider escape going clear early. Loïc Chetout and Matthias Le Turnier (Cofidis), Sven Erik Bystrom (Katusha-Alpecin), Jon Insausti (Bahran-Merida), Mickaël Delage (FDJ), Imanol Erviti (Movistar) and Christophe Pfingsten (Bora-Hansgrohe) formed the main break of the day.
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