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Outclassed by Jakub Mareczko in the first two stages dedicated to the sprinters, Nicolas Marini of Nippo-Vini Fantini avenged himself as he surpassed his young rival from Willier-Southeast at the end of a very long sprint in Wujiang. As he finished third, Franco-Colombian Leonardo Duque of Delko Marseille-Provence-KTM grabbed four seconds that enabled him to move up to the top 3 overall. Third at sixteen seconds, he became a threat to race leader Cameron Bayly of Attaque Gusto who enjoyed his first day in the orange jersey of the Toue of Taihu Lake.
“Today again there has been a great job by my team but unfortunately my lead out man [Riccardo] Stacchiotti had a puncture with 3km to go”, Marini explained. “At that point I put myself on Mareczko’s wheel. I passed him before the line and the good legs I’ve had these days allowed me to stay ahead of him. With this victory, I’ve paid the team back. A stage win was the goal. Now I can look for more but without any pressure.”
This was Marini’s third win of the year, all collected in China, after stage 8 of the Tour of Qinghai Lake and stage 5 of the Tour of China I. In his second year as a pro, he has a fully Asian palmarès with stage 1 of the Tour of Japan and the Tour of China II overall plus four stages last year. The 23 year old Italian aims for more on this continent as he has already extended his contract with Nippo-Vini Fantini.
It looked like Mareczko was going to win again as he smartly chose the right side of the road for sprinting whereas the wind was blowing from the left, thus forcing Marini to a more difficult task. “But I started from too far out”, Mareczko commented. “Marini has done well. It’s been a head to head fight between and he got it. I had put the team at the front during the last lap to bring the breakaway back. We prepared the sprint really well.”
Muradjan Halmuratov from Beijing-Innova and Mehdi Rajabikaboodcheshmeh from Tabriz-Petrochemical were the two men in the lead after half way with an advantage superior to one minute until 15km to go.
“Life as a leader is stressful”, noted Bayly who experienced that position for the first time ever at international level. “But it’s good fun. I was controlling with my team. I had to make sure no GC guy was going away.”
With three stages to go, the Attaque Gusto rider is now under the threat of Duque who took four seconds bonus throughout the third place in the final sprint and moved up to third overall the day after coming second uphill. “In Europe, I was known as a sprinter”, said the versatile rider from Marseille who will call it a career after the Tour of Taihu on Saturday. “I’m on good form after the Tour of Hainan. I sprinted in third place and I remained in third place. I’ll try to win the overall. I’ll target more time bonus. Possibly the race will be decided on the last day.”
Stage 5 from Nantong to Haimen on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta favours the sprinters again.
