Tour of Hainan: Four straight wins for Mareczko

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Jakub Mareczko (Wilier Triestina) won his fourth consecutive stage at the Tour of Hainan. It wasn't a standard one as the peloton rode a roaring pace from start to finish, despite the headwind in the final 50 kilometres.

Martin Laas (Delko Marseille) finished runner-up once again while Andriy Kulyk (Kolss) made the podium for the first time after the last three breakaway riders were reeled in after the flamme rouge.

"I have never before ridden a stage so flat out with no time to relax or breathe properly," Mareczko told Cyclingnews in Changjiang. "I think all riders are tired and happy to know that we're now in the second half of the Tour of Hainan. We rode really fast today. We arrived 20 minutes ahead of the fastest schedule.

"In the last kilometre, we still weren't sure of closing down the breakaway. We managed to catch them in the last few metres only. We weren't expecting it would be so hard. The wind has made today's race very hard for everyone, including my teammates. At some point, there was a breakaway of 47 riders, so we've had to give everything to put it back together. We really struggled with the headwind to catch the last three escapees."

The bunch was on fire right after the flag dropped. Alexis Cartier (H&R Block), Oleksander Polivoda (Kolss) and Ivar Slik (Monkey Town) led the first attack. A total of 47 riders, including the whole Kolss team, runner-up Martin Laas (Delko Marseille) and Best Asian rider Liu Jianpeng (Hengxiang) rode away after 25 kilometres. Mareczko was in the second part of the bunch, forcing his Wilier Triestina team to mount a chase while his teammate Eugert Zhupa, who was at the front won the intermediate sprint at kilometre 32, ahead of Anthony Giacoppo (IsoWhey Sports-Swisswellness). Giacoppo would later be disqualified due to drafting behind his team car for too long after a crash.

The peloton was back together after 44km of a very aggressive racing, and 50 kilometres were covered in less than an hour as the attacks kept flying. Benjamin Hill (Attaque Gusto) took the KOM ahead of Vitaly Buts (Kolss), who nevertheless retained the lead.

Tour of Japan winner Oscar Pujol (Ukyo) made his GC ambitions clear as he came third behind Slik and Alfonso Castillo (Jelly Belly) in the second intermediate sprint. Attacks kept going on with Andrii Bratashchuk (Kolss), Dimitri Bussard (Swiss national team) and Zhang Zheng (Hengxiang) riding away from a 21-man leading group at km 90. But 10 kilometres further down the road, it was another big group of 22 riders on the offensive.

As fatigue was obvious in the bunch with constants attacks, Pujol found the way to escape with 40km to go along with Lukas Sprengler (Swiss national team) and Fabian Lienhard (Vorarlberg) and Cartier. Their maximum lead was one minute 33km away from Changjiang. Cartier was swallowed by the bunch within 10km to go. The Wilier Triestina team struggled to bring it back together, and they only caught the leading trio 500 metres before the line. "It was our idea to make it a really hard day," said Sprengler. "The Wilier team was tired and the battle between us at the front and them leading the peloton was a hard one until the very end. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough power left to pull till the finish line."

Delko Marseille tried to take the command before the sprint but Mareczko remained in control to claim his fourth straight stage victory ahead of Laas.

"I was suffering all day because the peloton was going so fast," said Laas. "I had big pains in my legs and after 10 kilometres I looked back and I could see that we were 40-something guys at the front. I was a little bit surprised that the peloton was broken. We had a 40-seconds gap. It was a funny and hard race today."

Mareczko indicated that such a hard day of racing wouldn't be without consequences in the coming stages, especially on the seventh day, but he's got another opportunity before that with stage 6 finishing in Sanya where he claimed his first pro victory two years ago.

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