Shpilevski gets off to solid start in Taihu

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Boris Shpilevski (Tabriz Petrochemical) has won stage 1 of the Tour of Taihu in Wuxi. In a bunch gallop, the Russian preceded Australia’s Aaron Kemps (V-Australia) and Germany’s Sebastian Körber (Nutrixxion).

“It was a difficult sprint for me to do”, Shpilevski explained at the end of the stage. “I couldn’t train properly because of the cold in Moscow. Mountain-biking gave me a little bit of power but I need some days to get better. In these conditions, I’m really happy to win.”

“It was a pretty chaotic sprint”, runner up Kemps echoed. “Tabriz did a good job but no team really could control. Both Boris and I had to go early, with 200 metres to go, against the wind. It was just a drag race. As we might have more sprints here, I hope for a change of positions with Boris tomorrow. It was a very quick stage 1.”

Riders covered the first hour at 50km/h.

“The roads here are very fast and everyone was keen to have a bunch sprint”, noted Kemps’ V-Australia teammate Cameron Peterson who was one of a number of riders in the day’s main break.

Along with Peterson, former Lampre rider Milan Kadlec (Dukla Praha), Tour of China winner Muradjan Khalmuratov (Giant-Kenda) and Wong Kam Po (Hong Kong) formed a formidable escape.

Their maximum lead was 32 seconds and they were eventually caught with around 30km to go.

Third place Kröber was happy with his effort, particularly considering he's used to being the team's lead-out man.

“I became the sprinter of the team since Steffen Radochla couldn’t come and this is naturally a good result for me”, the German from Nutrixxion said.

Shpilevski scored his seventh UCI win of the season, all in Asia, including stage 9 of Le Tour de Langkawi and four stages of the Tour of China. The points he accumulated on the Asia Tour earned him a contract with Ag2r-La Mondiale for next year.

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