Tibor Del Grosso beats in-form rival to win NXT Classic: emphatic victory for Alpecin-Premier Tech Dutchman

The NXT Classic can be seen as the little brother of the Amstel Gold Race, still the Netherlands’ best-known one-day race. In Eijsden, where a successor to Dion Smith was being sought, the organisers could once again count on a strong-quality field. That had already been highlighted in IDLProCycling.com’s own preview of the race earlier this week.

Notable names on the start list included Del Grosso, Senna Remijn (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Huub Artz (Lotto-Intermarché), Frits Biesterbos (Picnic PostNL), Bart Lemmen, Wilco Kelderman (Visma | Lease a Bike), Pascal Eenkhoorn (Soudal Quick-Step), Quinten Hermans (Q36.5) and Hugo Hofstetter (NSN). Even so, the outstandingly in-form Schmid of Jayco AlUla went into the race as the clear pre-race favourite. The Swiss rider had already posted strong results at the Tour Down Under, Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and the Tour of Oman, before rounding off his week at Coppi e Bartali with the overall win.

There were no live television images from the Dutch semi-classic, meaning the race had to be followed through written updates. Those showed that the day’s breakaway consisted of Mads Andersen (Swatt), Oscar Amey (NSN), Samuele Zoccarato (MBH Bank) and Bram Danklof of Parkhotel Valkenburg.

Several crashes were also reported. Among those caught out were Alberto Dainese (Soudal Quick-Step), Anton Schiffer of Visma | Lease a Bike and Lennes Jacobs of Picnic PostNL. All of that happened in the bunch, where Jayco AlUla moved to the front in the opening phase to keep the gap to the leaders under control.

After Anna Vanderaerden (Alpecin-Premier Tech) had won the women’s race, attention shifted to the decisive phase of the men’s event. More punctures were then reported, for Pietro Mattio, Ashlin Barry and also Wilco Kelderman of Visma | Lease a Bike. As a result, they were not part of the first section of the peloton when the race split to pieces on the Gulberg.

From that reduced group, the two top favourites — Schmid and Del Grosso — launched their move. They opened up an advantage of 35 seconds and looked set to decide the race between themselves on the way to the finish in Eijsden.

The peloton, however, did not surrender immediately. Teams including Soudal Quick-Step and Q36.5 helped to organise the chase, but they came back too late to stop the outcome. Del Grosso took the win, underlining once again that Alpecin-Premier Tech’s decision to leave him out of the Tour of Flanders and send him to the NXT Classic instead turned out to be the right one. That broader spring planning had already been visible in the team’s recent race selections.