After missing the prologue of the Tour of Qinghai Lake, the Pezula racing team from Ireland were awarded the time of the last rider on the general classification and were allowed to start the second stage of the Tour.
"Our flights from Dublin to Heathrow were delayed and because of that we missed our connecting flight to Beijing," Brian O'Loughlin, Pezula's manager explained to Cyclingnews.
"They were having problems with the radar so as it turned out no flights came in or out the entire day."
The team eventually arrived in Xining at 9:00 pm the night of the first stage, after catching the Thursday flight to Heathrow and a connecting flight the Beijing. The Chief commissaries allowed the team to start and awarded the entire team the time of the last placed rider on GC.
"We are happy to be here," O'Loughlin said. "It could have been a lot worse. We didn't come here for the overall anyway, we came to get up there in the stages and blood some of the young guys on the team."
