Tour of Guangxi: Gaviria wins stage 1

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Although Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) was delayed by visa issues on the way to China, the Colombian sprinter was quickly at full flight on Thursday, sprinting to victory on the opening stage of the Tour of Guangxi.

The 23-year-old will enter the history books as the both the first stage winner and race leader of the new WorldTour event and start stage 2 wearing the leader’s red jersey.

Gaviria was the dominant sprinter at the Giro d’Italia in May and he showed a clean pair of heels in dispatching LottoNL-Jumbo’s Dylan Groenewegen and Pascal Ackerman of Bora for win number 11 of his long 2017 season.

On the flat and fast finish after 107km on a city circuit, Gaviria hit out on the left hand of the road and had time to straight and raise his arms to celebrate the 53rd win for Quick-Step-Floors in 2017. He leads the race by one second over Silvan Dillier (BMC), who took bonus seconds while in the break of the day. Friday’s second stage is from Qinzhou to Nanning and is also expected to be dominated by the sprinters.

The win looked easy only on television but it was hard race: a short stage, fast and at the end one of the craziest sprints. It’s one of the fastest sprints I’ve ever done. I’m delighted to take a win in the last race of the year, which is the Tour of Guangxi,” Gaviria said.

How it unfolded

1101 days on from the final stage of the Tour of Beijing in 2014, WorldTour racing returned to China for stage 1 of the Tour of Guangxi.

With warm weather and enthusiastic fans cheering on the 122-rider strong peloton, racing commended on the shores of Beibu Gulf for two laps of Beihai City.

An escape group of Andriy Grivko (Astana), Silvan Dillier (BMC Racing), Nicholas Dougall (Dimension Data) and Remi Cavagna (Quick-Step Floors) formed in the early stages of the day. The peloton was content to let it go with Orica-Scott, Cannondale-Drapac, Bahrain-Merida and LottoNL-Jumbo patrolling affairs at the head of the peloton.

The quartet was never given more than half a minute, with the peloton strung out on the wide-open but windy roads of Beihai City. With the first jerseys of the race up for grabs from the breakaway, Dillier was aggressive in winning the intermediate sprint points for the points jersey lead. Cavagna meanwhile secured the mountains jersey.

In the flat wide and open finale, the responsibility for the chase of the breakaway was taken up by Orica-Scott and Cannondale-Drapac who moved into front position of the bunch.

Cavagna made a bid for glory but it was exhausted when solo chaser Jonathan Lastra of Caja Rural bridged with 13km to race. Behind, a crash brought down Ryan Gibbons, Jay Thompson and Valerio Conti as the sprint finale loomed.

In the set up for the finish, the duo was reeled in before the sprint trains organised jostled for position. In the battle for the line, Gaviria was a class above and will surely be the man to beat in the other sprint stages.
 

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