Tour of Guangxi: Tim Wellens secures overall victory

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Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) has won the inaugural Tour of Guangxi with the Belgian fending off all challengers on this sixth and final stage of the race. The sprint finish finale was won by Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) with Wellens safely positioned in the bunch.

Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) and Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing) round out the podium.

“It is a WorldTour stage race and it’s not easy to win. I think, with the team, we did a super good job in controlling and I’m super happy to win here,” Wellens said after crossing the line to seal the win.

“On the mountain I was getting a little bit nervous. I was afraid the other teams would attack, but in the end it was just tempo uphill and there weren’t any attacks. It was perfect.”

It is Wellens’ fourth WorldTour general classification win, adding to his two Eneco Tour and one Tour de Pologne victories. It was the first time that the peloton had been back in China since the Tour of Beijing shut up shop in 2014 and Wellens commended the organisers on a race well put together.

“For me, it was perfect race. Good organisation with nice hotels and nice roads to race on. When you see all the names on the start list course, of course, maybe it is a little but late in the season but we have to put it somewhere on the agenda. For me it is worthy of WorldTour.”

In the sprint, Gaviria again proved too fast for his rivals to take his fourth win of the race and 14th of the season to draw level with teammate Marcel Kittel on wins. Gaviria also won the points jersey due to his stage wins. Second place on the stage went to Niccolo Bonifazio of Bahrain-Merida while yesterday’s winner Dylan Groenewegen was third.

“The sprint was a really good job by my strong team. I am really happy with my victory”

The king of the mountains classification was won by Daniel Oss (BMC Racing) with Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) the white best young rider. BMC was the best team.

How it unfolded

A 116-rider strong peloton signed on in Guilin’s central square Tuesday morning to begin the final stage of the Chinese world tour race. With the women’s peloton waiting in the wings for the start of their race following the men, there was a buzz around the start/finish venue packed with spectators. Newly elected UCI president David Lappartient was one of the guests at the start.

When racing got underway, a breakaway was quick to form with representation from Jon Irisarri (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Wang Meiyin (Bahrain-Merida), and Oss, who was in the hunt for KOM points. The trio built a four-minute lead by the first intermediate sprint point of the day as Lotto-Soudal took up the reins back in the bunch.

The lead dipped down towards the three-minute mark at the half-way mark of the 168 kilometre race before moving back out to four minutes as the peloton made the turn back towards Guilin from the south.

A Quick-Step Floors-led peloton continued to chip away at the advantage of the trio who had just one minute with 20km to race. In his final race, Martin Velits drove the pace for one final time to ensure the bunch sprint finish. With seven km to race, Oss and Wang were reeled in after their late attempt to stay away and from there, it was only ever going to be Gaviria taking the win.

Full report to follow. 

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