Tour de Taiwan: Pozdnyakov takes opening stage

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At only their second race after Le Tour de Langkawi, Kirill Pozdnyakov and his newly created Synergy Baku Cycling Project team from Azerbaijan have found success at the 25th Tour de Taiwan. The Russian neo-pro collected his first pro victory at the end of stage 1 called “Terrific Taiwan”, ahead of his last breakaway companion Cheung King Lok from Hong Kong, while the peloton didn’t manage to catch them and Christoph Schweizer completed Baku’s triumph by winning the bunch sprint eight seconds later.

“I’m very happy”, Pozdnyakov said. “To win such a hard and nice race brings me a lot of emotions. I wasn’t afraid of the return of the peloton because I was just giving 100 per cent of myself. It worked out well today because we formed a very good group at the front. Normally it’s very difficult to stay away on a flat terrain but we managed to do so because the peloton was tired and it made the race less controllable. I’m grateful to Jeremy Hunt, David McCann and David McQuaid to have put this team together. It’s a very professional environment. It gives me my first opportunity to race in Asia, firstly at Le Tour de Langkawi and now here.”

At the end of last year, McQuaid sealed a deal with the Azeri authorities with the aim of developing local riders for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. A few experienced cyclists, including recently retired Hunt and McCann, were hired to help them reach their goal.

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Pozdnyakov is one of them. At the age of 24, he found fame in Belgium where he won nineteen races as a junior including the U19 version of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. With the VL Technics Abutriek team, he won the Tour de Côte d’Or in France last year and finished 3rd at the GP Geluwe and 5th at the Flèche ardennaise.

“Normally, climbing is no problem for me”, said the man from Bryansk. “I’ll try to defend the yellow jersey. For GC, we also have other options, with [Denmark’s] John Ebsen for example.” Stage 2 in the county of Tainan is expected to be the queen stage of the race of the Tour de Taiwan after the peloton has left the windy conditions of the Dapeng Bay in the far south of the country behind.

“The wind has been my ally”, Pozdnyakov noted. Initially, South African Pro Continental team MTN-Qhubeka showed their ambition when Johan van Zyl was the first man to attack after 7km of racing but without being granted any freedom. Another motivated team appeared to be French outfit La Pomme-Marseille as they were represented by four riders a major 20-man breakaway. However, only after half way into the stage, a decisive move took place with eight riders going clear off the peloton: Chris Jennings (La Pomme-Marseille), Jakub Kratochvila (Arbö), Jacques Janse van Rensburg (MTN-Qhubeka), Sai-Udomsin Puchong and Liphongyu Navuti (Thailand), Kohei Uchima (Japan), Cheung and Pozdnyakov.

As they never got an advantage superior to one and half minutes, a bunch sprint finish was highly expected but Pozdnyakov had kept some energy to launch an attack while riding against the wind over a bridge with 4km to go. Only Cheung managed to go across but GC contender Janse van Rensburg was forced to give up all of his hopes of winning the Tour de Taiwan due to cramps. There’s obviously more to be seen from rookie Pozdnyakov and the new task force born in one more former Republic of the Soviet Union that has fallen in love with cycling.

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