Tong Thanh Tuyen delivered the first victory of the HTV Cup for his Quan Doi team in Nha Trang on stage 12. He beat Xa Van Thang, Ynghua Dong Nai and Nguyen Van Duong to win the 190km stage. The race breaks for a rest day on Monday.
“This is a beautiful victory for my coach and my teammates”, said Tong, who held off a chasing peloton to win. Nguyen Tan Hoai showed his desire to retain the yellow jersey ahead of the crucial 36km team time trial in Nha Trang on Tuesday.
Loïc Desriac of Bikelife put some pressure on the leader as he took part in a breakaway quite far away from the finish. “I also wanted to enjoy myself riding on the long downhill,” the Frenchman told Cyclingnews. “The cooperation in our group was good but we’d have needed a more technical descent to have a chance to succeed.”
Some tension was noted in the peloton between Bikelife and the TP Ho Chi Minh team of defending champion Javier Sardá Perez. They all have the team time trial in mind to shape up a classification led by Nguyen Tan Hoai since stage 3. “I hope that we are the favourites for the TTT,” Sardá said. “I’m not sure if we can regain one minute on Domesco, but that will be an interesting race for sure.”
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