Tour of Taihu Lake, stage 5 Grosu makes it two for Nippo-Vini Fantini

　　Romania’s Eduard Michael Grosu of Nippo-Vini Fantini became the fifth different stage winner in six days of racing at the Tour of Taihu Lake, following the 2015 edition in which Jakub Mareczko won seven stages out of nine plus the overall classification. The Willier-Southeast sprinter finished third in the bunch gallop in Haimen behind Germany’s Tino Thömel and retained the green jersey while Cameron Bayly from Attaque Gusto remained in the orange leader’s jersey.

　　“In theory I was helping out to [Nicolas] Marini as I did in the previous days”, Grosu reacted. “I didn’t want to take too many risks. Since Marini was going well, I didn’t have to sprint myself. My job was to stick behind him. But today, in the last curve a gap was created and our guys were a bit behind. At 100 metres to go, Marini went. Then I realized his speed was going down so I decided to sprint as well and we managed to win. This is a great satisfaction after all the problems I had in the past two years including glandular fever. I dedicate this victory to my sport director Stefano Giuliani who kept his faith in me.”

　　On wide and straight flat roads, only one right hand turn 600 metres before the finishing line disturbed the sprinters in their plans. Mareczko admitted he made a mistake at that point although his Willier-Southeast team had done the job to deliver another bunch kick. The Italian outfit rode behind the breakaway of the day formed of Genki Yamamoto (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Ben Hill (Attaque Gusto), Altanzul  Altansukh (Ningxia Sport), Darcy Ellerm-Norton (St-George-Merida), Ondrej Vendolsky (Dukla Praha) and Ma Guangtong (Wisdom-Hengxiang). In the last ten kilometers, Muradjan Halmuratov (Beijing Innova) went for his now daily one-man-show until he was reeled in prior to the inevitable bunch sprint finish.

　　“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to leading a stage race”, Bayly commented. “But it was a bit less stressful today, especially with having Ben [Hill] in the breakaway. He’s only one minute down on GC so the Italian teams and Marseille pulled the bunch. I could relax a little bit more. It’s still a bit stressful but it’s good fun.”

　　The Australian has two more days to defend the orange jersey with a tricky stage to finish in Jurong on Saturday. Mareczko wasn’t too disappointed as he increased his lead in the points classification that has become his goal this year on a more difficult course than last year. “Beating Marini, I’ve taken one more step towards winning the green jersey, so I’m not too disappointed about missing out on the stage victory today”, Mareczko said.

　　Stage 6 from Wujin Yancheng Park to West Taihu Lake can be animated again with possible echelons and a winning breakaway like last year when Chinese national champion Zhao Jingbiao crossed the finishing line first but was relegated because of a flying relay with team-mate Wang Meiyin.