Tour of Guangxi stage 1 highlights - Video
Groenewegen opens final WorldTour race of 2018 with a sprint win
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).
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.
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