Top sprinter Andrea Guardini finally wins in Wanning
Top sprinter Andrea Guardini finally wins in Wanning
Andrea Guardini claimed his 32nd victory on the Asian continent out of 42 since he successfully started his professional career at the 2011 Le Tour de Langkawi as he fended off the field of the sprinters at the end of stage 4 in the Country Garden Cup 13th Tour of Hainan in Wanning while Dylan Page of the Swiss national team retained the yellow jersey for the third straight day.
This is Guardini’s first participation to the Tour of Hainan even though it’s been in the air a few times before as he was told of the similarities between this event at the end of the season and the Malaysian race at the beginning of the year. Four years ago, then racing for Astana, he had his visa for China but a change of program kept him in Europe. He’s probably the European rider who complains the less about the heat as this is his forte. He was expected to win a sprint earlier than on stage 4 but he had to wait for his turn to find the right timing in the very competitive field of motivated sprinters there is this year at the Tour of Hainan.
In the very first part of stage 4, four riders were away: Gu Bingcheng (Giant), Stephen Clancy (Novo Nordisk), Niu Yikui (Mitchelton-Scott) and Zhang Zheng (Hengxiang) who was hunting for the blue jersey again, after losing it to Malaysia’s Amirul Marzuki the day before. After 5km of racing, they were already three minutes up the road but the bunch kept them on a leash and it was 2’50’’ after 40km. Zhang won the first intermediate sprint at km 33.8 and was second to Niu in the second one at km 60.2, after which he stood up.
With 50km to go, Gatis Smukulis (Delko Marseille-Provence KTM) and Artem Ovechkin (Terengganu TSG) rode away from the bunch but another Terengganu TSG rider had more luck later on as Mongolian champion Maral-Erdene Batmunkh bridged the gap to Gu, Clancy and Niu 38km before the end. Batmunkh and Niu were the last to surrender to the rush of the sprinters with 7km to go.
Quotes of the day:
Stage winner Andrea Guardini (Bardiani-CSF): “Today I put in the last 200 metres the efforts I didn’t put yesterday and I managed to fend off my adversaries in the last 50 metres, so I’m really happy because I couldn’t mess a second time for my team-mates who did a great job yesterday. It was my mistake yesterday. I didn’t sleep well last night, thinking of what went wrong. It’s a revenge today. We were well organised in the last ten kilometres today. Preparation for the sprints is very challenging here in Hainan. Four stages winners in four bunch sprints, it says a lot about the level there is at this race this year with so many sprinters in contention. There are even teams who can choose between different riders who is their sprinter of the day. It’s always difficult to win a sprint. I’ve always said that I like to race under the heat so I can’t complain here. I prefer those conditions than rain and cold.”
Davide Ballerini (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), second: I’m displeased because I had to lead Manuel [Belletti] out, like in the previous races, but I infiltrated myself in a hole, hadn’t I done it, I wouldn’t have been even second, but I lost Manuel there, at about 450 metres to go where the crash happened. Unfortunately, the win hasn’t arrived today but obviously, it wasn’t easy against [Andrea] Guardini.”
André Looij (Monkey Town), third: “I’m happy with my first podium in this stage race. I got a good position in the sprint. But I was a bit too late in sprinting so I couldn’t win but it’s a good result for me and for my team.”
Race leader Dylan Page (Swiss national team): “I’ve realized today that it’s not easy to fight for yellow jersey and stage win at the same time. We were forced to work all day and we split the work with the Androni guys because they won yesterday. I took a lot of wind in the finale today. I spent too much energy before the sprint. I got a little bit boxed in and I didn’t time it perfectly. It was stage 4… We can’t make the podium every day but our goal remains to win a stage before the end of the race.”
Best Asian rider Zhang Zheng (Hengxiang): “The climbing stages don’t suit me, so I want to use the flat stage to break away and score points in the intermediate sprints. That’s what I did today. My focus is on the blue jersey for now, so I went back to the bunch after the intermediate sprints.”
Most active rider Niu Yikui (Mitchelton-Scott): “My job was to break away today but there were only two intermediate sprints today, so the blue jersey was out of reach for me. I tried to win the stage as well. I was confident I could beat the Mongolian champion, had we finished together, but we got caught in the last 5km.”
