Bronzini wins opening stage at Tour of Chongming Island

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Giorgia Bronzini (Cylance Pro Cycling) won the first stage of the sprinter-friendly Tour of Chongming Island after a finale that was marred by two big crashes. Kelly Druyts (Doltcini-Van Eyck Sport) and Silvia Persico (Valcar PBM) rounded out the podium. Bronzini is the overall race leader ahead of stage 2.

The first stage of the three-day race was held entirely on the island in the mouth of the Yangtze river, just north of Shanghai, that the race is named for. The highest point on the 111.5 kilometres starting and finishing at Chongming Xincheng Park was below 20 metres, so a mass sprint was widely expected.

The sprinters' teams held the peloton together in the beginning. Kirsten Wild (Wiggle High5) won the first of two intermediate sprints after 29km ahead of Jolien D'hoore (Mitchelton Scott) and Chloe Hosking (Alé Cipollini), taking valuable bonus seconds.

A mountain sprint was also included in the stage, held on a slight rise after 54.6km. It was won by Lucy Garner (Wiggle High5) who will wear the polka-dot jersey in tomorrow's stage 2. Not long afterwards, about a dozen riders broke free of the peloton. Their advantage grew only slowly and was just below one minute with 35km to the finish. It was mainly Wiggle High5 who controlled the race for Wild.

From the break, Jutatip Maneephan (Thailand Women's Cycling Team) won the second intermediate sprint ahead of Claudia Koster (Team Virtu Cycling) and Ingrid Drexel (Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank). As the break entered the last 30km, the peloton had relaxed a bit, and the gap increased to 1:44 minutes.

Wiggle High5 took over at the front of the peloton again and quickly reduced the gap. With 18km, escapees Charlotte Becker (Hitec Products-Birk Sport) and Karalina Savenka (Minsk Cycling Club) made a last attempt to hold off the peloton, but they too were caught after a short while.

Corinna Lechner (BTC City Ljubljana) and Dalia Muccioli (Valcar PBM) attacked from the peloton at the 10-kilometre mark and built a gap of 17 seconds as no team wanted to chase them down. But when the sprint preparations started in the final five kilometres, the two attackers were easily reeled in.

A crash with just under 3km to go derailed the sprint trains of Chloe Hosking and Kendall Ryan (Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) and put them out of contention. It also split the peloton and left only some thirty riders in the first group. As the crash happened in the final three kilometres, though, all riders should be given the winner's time for the stage.

There was another big crash on the finishing straight with about 250 metres to the line. This caught out Wild and D'hoore, leaving only about ten riders to sprint for the win. Bronzini beat Druyts and Persico to the line and took the victory.

Bronzini will wear the yellow leader's jersey in tomorrow's stage 2, 121.3km from Changxing Fenghuang Park to Chongming Xincheng Park.

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