Miyazawa goes two-for-two

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 Takashi Miyazawa threw the gauntlet at current Tour de Taiwan yellow jersey David McCann that his time may be up following the former's back-to-back stage wins heading into Taichung City at the end of stage four today.

The pint-sized Miyazawa, who took his first ever stage of the Tour de Taiwan yesterday in Changhua was again in his element when he became part of a three-man breakaway just before the second sprint stage at Yongchun Road.

"The strategy was to break away as soon as there was an opportunity as today being a flat stage, there is every possibility for anyone to win the race," said Miyazawa afterwards.

"A lot of teams did not want to work today as they are preparing for the climb tomorrow. I had hoped that the other rider with me (Ryoma Nonaka) would take the stage but he couldn't - that is bicycle life.

"For tomorrow, I will be just looking at David and while I might be a sprinter more than a climber, David will be the main aim."

Starting just outside the Chunghwa Telecom and fronted by Wenxin Forest Park, the race was mostly flat today with three sprints around Taichung City Centre.

With an average speed of just under 50km/h, the peloton raced through the route for Hsiao Shih Hsin from Exustar Cycling Team to take sprint one.

Just before the second sprint, a three-man breakaway left the peloton, including Miyazawa and his team-mate Nonaka, plus Malaysia's Suhardi Hassan.

Suhardi picked up the second sprint stage as Nonaka grabbed the third heading into the finish line.

And while they managed to work well to establish a lead of well over two minutes at one point, they just could not last the pace when they were caught by the main bunch in the last seven kilometres of the race.

In addition to winning today's stage and strengthening his position at the top of the sprinters' classification, the 32-year-old Miyazawa also took over the best Asian classification from Hong Kong 's Cheung King Wei.

"He's fast: two wins out of two is very good. Other than winning the stage, he has also managed to win some valuable seconds off me," said McCann of his Japanese opponent.

"But I think that tomorrow will be the decider where I still believe that it can be anybody's title, considering that there are two big hills instead of two big mountains to climb.

"I would have preferred a much harder climb but we will see what happens tomorrow."

While McCann maintains his hold on the race lead, the two consecutive stage wins have allowed Miyazawa to move up to fourth in the general classification, just 20 seconds behind.

Second is William Clarke (Genesys Wealth System) and third is Philip Gaimon (Kenda), who are both 11 seconds adrift of the Irish veteran.

Stage five into Miaoli County will be of interest to not only the peloton but also a mention should be given to the current leader of the king of the mountains jersey holder Feng Chun Kai of the Action Cycling team.

Miaoli is Chun Kai's hometown and it will be interesting to see if he can turn on the power and celebrate his return home with a stage win which will see riders going through two Category 1 climbs at Sanyi and Liyutan.