Italy’s Jakub “Kuba”Mareczko of Willier-Southeast made it three as he won stage 6 in the Tour of Taihu Lake. The joy he expressed while he crossed the finishing line said a lot about the
frustration he felt when he lost stage 4 to Nicolas Marini and stage 5 to
Michael Eduard Grosu who, both from Vini Fantini, finished second and third at Xitaihu Lake.
“At the difference of the two previous day, we managed to make the team work fruitful”, Mareczko commented of his twelfth personal win of the
year. “This is a good way to conclude the season. Today again it was windy on the finishing line, so I wasn’t sure that I’d win but my team-mates have helped me in such a way that I couldn’t lose.”
“We didn’t make any mistake, ‘Kuba’ was just the strongest”, Marini admitted. “We couldn’t do any better.” “It was a pretty different sprint from yesterday’s”, Grosu echoed. “It was more dangerous with curves and people coming from behind. With 1km to go, I lost Marini’s wheel because
the team from Riga [RietumuDelfin] boxed us in on the right hand side.
I’ve had to brake and I starting sprinting from further back. There wasn’t any space for doing better. It’s a good result but seen from the outside, a
stage win has much more value than second and third.”
Cameron Bayly went down with 7km to go. Escorted by three team-mates after he jumped on Martz Alder’s bike, he made it back to the pack 4.5km before the end. “In a corner, someone on the inside of me slid out or blew up and there was nowhere to go so I just hit the ground”, Bayly
described. “Luckily I had a teammate behind me and he gave me his bike straight away. I managed to just get back on to the pack. I just have a bit of skin off and that’s it.” The Australian might have an even more difficult task to defend his
jersey during the seventh and conclusive stage, which is the equivalent of last year’s queen stage won by Marco Zanotti of ParkhotelValkenburg at Maoshan Scenic Area where the history of Taoism goes as far back as 5,000 years ago. “Either way tomorrow is gonna be a hard day”, Bayly said of the lumpy terrain. “I’m still really excited. It’s gonna be an exciting race and I’m ready.” Giuseppe Fonzi of Willier-Southeast and Leonardo Duque from Delko Marseille-Provence-KTM are the biggest threat to the orange jersey on what will be the last ever race of the FrancoColombian who took part in the Tour de France on three occasions (2008, 2009, 2011) with Cofidis.