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Lionel Taminiaux (Lotto-Dstny) opened the six-stage Gree-Tour of Guangxi with a victory, overcoming Gijs van Hoecke (Intermarché-Wanty) in a decent dash to the road in Fangchenggang on stage 1.
Taminiaux and Van Hoecke had been neck and neck on reverse sides of the highway throughout the last metres, with the Lotto-Dstny rider simply managing to get the benefit when it counted so he might sweep up his first WorldTour win.
A quickly closing Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates) took third, charging previous the fourth-placed Ethan Vernon, who was tucked in behind Taminiaux.
The opening stage of the ultimate WorldTour race of 2024 performed out over a course that was all the time anticipated to ship a bunch dash however nonetheless threw in some hills to check the sphere because it wound over the bridge-heavy circuit with no scarcity of water views.
The loop took riders out from Fangchenggang, heading out and again from the port metropolis 4 instances earlier than crossing the road for the ultimate time after 149.4km.
How it unfolded
The six-stage tour, which finishes on Sunday October 20, boasts a powerful area this 12 months from Jhonathan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers), Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates), defending champion Milan Vader (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) however it’s Saturday’s stage 5 to Nongla that’s anticipated to be the telling day for the overall classification given the summit end.
Still, earlier than racing bought underway in Fangchenggang the important thing message was that regardless of the deal with Saturday, the general contenders must be cautious from day one because the hilly parcours by means of a lot of the race opened the door to surprises.
“Stage 5 is in fact for everybody probably the most troublesome one and must be a classement day however to be sincere, day by day I believe it’s troublesome to regulate for the sprinters’ groups and there will not be that many sprinters so I believe we might see a extra thrilling race this 12 months,” mentioned Visma-Lease a Bike sports activities director Frans Maassen in an interview from earlier than the stage begin that was put out on the race social media.
The sprinters’ groups, nevertheless, managed to get the result that they had been hoping for on the opening stage at the least, with this present day of racing at the least sticking to the script.
As the flag fell to get the race underway, with the beginning scheduled for the Zhenyuling Bridge, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than a break of two was established with Stan Dewulf (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Rune Herregodts (Intermarché-Wanty) stretching the hole. They swept up the primary intermediate dash factors on the primary move of the road at 35.4km whereas Narváez – who’s heading to UAE Team Emirates in 2025 – snatched the ultimate bonus second up for grabs.
Dewulf and Herregodts maintained a spot of over two minutes by means of the following two laps, with the following batch of intermediate dash factors at 111.4km into the stage delivering a repeat of the highest two positions but it surely was just lately returned Robert Stannard (Bahrain Victorious) who took third this time, leaping from the group as they handed the road for the second final time.
Then within the last lap, a spent Herregodts fell away and the peloton had pulled Dewulf inside two minutes at round 20km to go. At simply over 12km to go Herregodts was again within the peloton however Dewulf nonetheless held out entrance.
The hole had dropped to lower than a minute as they entered the ultimate 10km however the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale rider gritted his tooth as he tried to carry off the shortly approaching peloton on the large straight roads. At 5km to go it was clear the break wasn’t going to prevail, however Dewulf was left hanging for some time earlier than lastly being swept up at 3km to go.
After that, it was time for the dash groups to organize for the quick finale.
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