Lionel Taminiaux (Lotto-Dstny) opened the six-stage Gree-Tour of Guangxi with a victory, overcoming Gijs van Hoecke (Intermarché-Wanty) in a tight sprint to the line in Fangchenggang on stage 1.
Taminiaux and Van Hoecke were neck and neck on opposite sides of the road during the final metres, with the Lotto-Dstny rider just managing to get the advantage when it counted so he could sweep up his first WorldTour win.
A rapidly closing Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates) took third, charging past the fourth-placed Ethan Vernon, who was tucked in behind Taminiaux.
The opening stage of the final WorldTour race of 2024 played out over a course that was always expected to deliver a bunch sprint but still threw in some hills to test the field as it wound over the bridge-heavy circuit with no shortage of water views.
The loop took riders out from Fangchenggang, heading out and back from the port city four times before crossing the line for the final time after 149.4km.
How it unfolded
The six-stage tour, which finishes on Sunday October 20, boasts a strong field this year from Jhonathan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers), Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates), defending champion Milan Vader (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) but it is Saturday’s stage 5 to Nongla that is expected to be the telling day for the general classification given the summit finish.
Still, before racing got underway in Fangchenggang the key message was that despite the focus on Saturday, the overall contenders would have to be wary from day one as the hilly parcours through much of the race opened the door to surprises.
“Stage 5 is of course for everyone the most difficult one and should be a classement day but to be honest, every day I think it is difficult to control for the sprinters' teams and there are not that many sprinters so I think we could see a more exciting race this year,” said Visma-Lease a Bike sports director Frans Maassen in an interview from before the stage start that was put out on the race social media.
The sprinters' teams, however, managed to get the outcome they had been hoping for on the opening stage at least, with this day of racing at least sticking to the script.
As the flag fell to get the race underway, with the start scheduled for the Zhenyuling Bridge, it wasn’t long before a break of two was established with Stan Dewulf (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Rune Herregodts (Intermarché-Wanty) stretching the gap. They swept up the first intermediate sprint points on the first pass of the line at 35.4km while Narváez – who is heading to UAE Team Emirates in 2025 – snatched the final bonus second up for grabs.
Dewulf and Herregodts maintained a gap of over two minutes through the next two laps, with the next batch of intermediate sprint points at 111.4km into the stage delivering a repeat of the top two positions but it was recently returned Robert Stannard (Bahrain Victorious) who took third this time, leaping from the group as they passed the line for the second last time.
Then in the final lap, a spent Herregodts fell away and the peloton had pulled Dewulf within two minutes at around 20km to go. At just over 12km to go Herregodts was back in the peloton but Dewulf still held out front.
The gap had dropped to less than a minute as they entered the final 10km but the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale rider gritted his teeth as he attempted to hold off the quickly approaching peloton on the wide straight roads. At 5km to go it was clear the break wasn’t going to prevail, but Dewulf was left hanging for a while before finally being swept up at 3km to go.
After that, it was time for the sprint teams to prepare for the fast finale.
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