Zeits takes first pro win in queen stage, Modolo keeps the lead
The long awaited queen stage of the tenth Tour of Hainan lived up to expectations with race favorite Andrey Zeits of Astana going clear to claim the first victory of his eight-year long professional career while Lampre-Merida’s Sacha Modolo paced himself to survive unscathed from the hills leading to Wuzhishan.
“I want to thank the organizers for putting together this nice race at the end of the season”, Zeits declared at the post-race press conference. “It’s my fourth time doing the Tour of Hainan and I like it, especially when the stages are long like sometimes this year. I’m happy to finally win a race. It’s been a great team work by Astana. I was pedaling on an easy mode all day while my team-mates were pulling the bunch. They prepared for my attack very well. I also tried to reach the finish line with a big enough gap to take the yellow jersey. It didn’t happen but I’m equally happy with the blue jersey [best Asian rider].”
As lone escapee Oleksandr Polivoda from the Ukraine national team surrendered, Zeits rode away with 16km to go as he countered an acceleration by his young team mate Bakhtiar Kozhatayev. Another promising rider Valerio Conti followed the instructions from his Lampre-Merida team to not move away from Zeits’ wheel in the decisive hill. But the young Italian got dropped in the downhill. He also caused a split that prevented chaser Julien El Farès of Marseille 13-KTM from coming across to the Kazakh leader.
“I’m disappointed”, the Frenchman said. “On the flat I should have waited for [Francisco] Mancebo. Had we combined forces, we were faster than Zeits in the sprint.” “Unfortunately I didn’t go downhill as well as uphill”, Mancebo realized. “I still feel the consequences of my crash early in the Tour of Hainan.”
At the exception of Conti, the Lampre-Merida riders were supposed to look after Modolo who had made clear on the eve of the queen stage that he hadn’t said his last word for keeping the yellow jersey. “There weren’t many responses to the attacks at the front, so I could just keep my steady pace”, the yellow jersey explained. “When I’m on good form, I can also do well in the climbs. I did today. I kept the commissaire’s car in sight so I knew the gap wasn’t too big. I thought I could regain twenty to thirty seconds in the downhill and that’s what I did.”
With an advantage of nine seconds over Zeits and twelve over El Farès in the overall ranking, Modolo can eye the first stage race victory of his career ahead of the conclusive stage. “We never know but I’ve almost won the Tour of Hainan”, the Italian admitted. “There’s also the green jersey to defend [with an advantage of six points over Andrea Palini]. That was my initial goal in addition to stage wins. I won’t take as many risks as usual in the sprint tomorrow with the yellow jersey on my shoulders.”
(by Jean-François Quénet)
