Stage 5: Mareczko makes poker

Jakub Mareczko (Wilier Triestina) won his  fourth consecutive stage but it wasn’t a standard one as the peloton rode  extremely fast from start to finish despite the headwind in the last fifty  kilometers. Martin Laas (Delko Marseille) came second again and Andriy Kulyk  (Kolss) made the podium for the first time after the last three breakaway riders  were reeled in in the last kilometer of racing.

119  riders started stage 5 in Danzhou, Ma Guangtong (Hengxiang) being the only  non-starter due to sickness. The bunch was on fire right after the flag off.  Alexis Cartier (H&R Block), Oleksander Polivoda (Kolss) and Ivar Slik  (Monkey Town) led the first attack. 47 riders including the whole Kolss team,  runner up Martin Laas (Delko Marseille) and Best Asian rider Liu Jianpeng  (Hengxiang) rode away after 25km of racing. Mareczko was in the second part of  the bunch, forcing his Wilier Triestina team to chase strongly while his  team-mate Eugert Zhupa who was at the front won the intermediate sprint at km 32  ahead of Anthony Giacoppo (IsoWhey Sports-Swisswellness) who would later be  disqualified due to drafting behind his team car for too long after a  crash.

The  peloton was back together after 44km of a very aggressive racing. 50km were  covered in less than an hour and attacks kept flying. Benjamin Hill (Attaque  Gusto) won the KOM price at km55.6 ahead of Vitaly Buts (Kolss) who nevertheless  retained the lead. Tour of Japan winner Oscar Pujol (Ukyo) made his GC ambitions  clear as he came third behind Slik and Alfonso Castillo (Jelly Belly) in the  second intermediate sprint (km 62). Attacks kept going on with Andrii  Bratashchuk (Kolss), Dimitri Bussard (Swiss national team) and Zhang Zheng  (Hengxiang) riding away from a 21-man leading group at km 90. But ten kilometers  further, it was another big group of 22 riders on the offensive.

As  fatigue was obvious in the bunch with constants attacks, Pujol found the way to  escape with 40km to go along with Alexis Cartier (H&R Block), Lukas  Sprengler (Swiss national team) and Fabian Lienhard (Vorarlberg). Their maximum  lead was one minute 33km away from Changjiang. Cartier was swallowed by the  bunch within 10km to go. The Wilier Triestina team struggled to bring it back  together and they only caught the leading trio 500 metres before the line. Delko  Marseille tried to take the command before the sprint but Mareczko remained in  control to claim his fourth straight stage victory ahead of Laas.

Post race  quotes:

Stage 5 winner and race leader Jakub  Mareczko: “I think all riders are tired and happy to know that we’re now in the  second half of the Tour of Hainan. We’ve ridden really fast today. We arrived  twenty minutes ahead of the fastest schedule. In the last kilometer, we still  weren’t sure to close on the breakaway. We managed to catch them in the very few  metres only. We weren’t expecting it would be so hard. The wind has made today’s  race very hard for everyone, including my team-mates. It never happened to me  before to contest a stage flat out from start to finish with not even a minute  to breathe and relax. They never slowed down. At some point there was a  breakaway of 47 riders, so we’ve had to give everything to put it back together.  It’s been a very fast day of cycling. We really struggled with the head wind to  catch the last three escapees. There are four stages left, including a pretty  hard one (stage 7). Today’s stage will have made some damage in the riders’  bodies.”

Second placed Martin Laas: “I was suffering  all day because the peloton was going so fast. I had big pains in my legs and  after ten kilometers I looked back and I could that we were fourty something  guys at the front. I was a little bit surprised that the peloton was broken. We  had a fourty seconds gap. It was a funny and hard race today! We rode full gas  in the first two and half hours. Our speed was almost 50km/h. In the final  sprint, we tried to take the last corner in front of the Wilier team, but it was  a bit messy, we lost some guys, we had to wait for [Asbjorn Kragh] Andersen. But  we did a good sprint. We were pretty close at the end.”

Third placed Andriy Kulyk: “I’m very happy  to make the podium after being fifth in previous stages. It’s always important  to be in the top 3. But I had some mechanical problems in the sprint. The tactic  and position were good but I couldn’t shift the gears to go faster.”

Most aggressive rider Lukas Sprengler: “I  was in almost every group that rode away. As a Swiss team, we were present in  all the moves. The breakaway was a good attack when all the teams were tired. It  was our idea to make it a really hard day. The Wilier team was tired and the  battle between us at the front and them leading the peloton was a hard one until  the very end. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough power left to pull till the  finish line.”

King of the Mountain Vitaly Buts: “It’s  been a very fast race from the gun. At the KOM, I lost some metres on Benjamin  Hill. Now we’re head to head in this classification. Between us, the KOM  classification will be decided on stage 7. Since day, we also work for Andriy  Kulyk to make the top 3 in a stage and finally it happened today. We hope that  he wins a stage by the end of the Tour.”

Best Asian rider Liu Jianpeng: “Having lost  our team-mate Ma Guangtong who didn’t start today due to sickness, I feel even  more responsibilities for defending the Best Asian rider jersey now. I think I  handled them pretty well today as I was in the front group when the peloton  split in two. I have a lot of respect for the Wilier Triestina team. The work  they’ve done to bring the bunch back together was huge.”