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Tour of Guangxi stage 1 highlights - Video

published 16 October 2018

Groenewegen opens final WorldTour race of 2018 with a sprint win

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Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) celebrates his win (Image credit: Getty Images)

Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) opened the final race of the 2018 WorldTour with a sprint victory on Tuesday, taking out the stage 1 win at the Tour of Guangxi in China ahead of Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb) and Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Floors).

Tour of Guangxi 2018 race preview

Tour of Guangxi: Groenewegen wins opening sprint

Groenewegen continues winning streak into October at Tour of Guangxi

The 107.4km stage in Beihai was animated in the early going by a six-rider move that included Silvain Dillier (AG2R La Mondiale), Andrey Grivko (Astana), Jay Thomson (Dimension Data), Marco Haller (Katusha-Alpecin), Pavel Sivakov (Team Sky) and Yusif Mirza (UAE Team Emirates).

The leaders built an ultimate gap of only 1:30 on the wide fast roads as LottoNL-Jumbo and Goupama-FDJ controlled the race for their sprinters, Groenewegen and Arnaud Demare.

The peloton pulled the initial breakaway back before the day's final climb, where Peter Kennaugh (Bora-Hansgrohe) and and Gianni Moscon (Team Sky) went on the attack. The duo opened a small gap, but the determined peloton brought them back into the fold with 5km remaining. From there it was a classic sprint stage, with LottoNL-Jumbo and Groupama-FDJ leading out the high-speed bunch gallop.