Teutenberg takes second straight Tour of Chongming Island

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It was another dominant day for the HTC-Highroad team in the final stage of the Tour of Chongming Island, as they raced to protect Ina-Yoko Teutenberg's overall lead, on 11 laps of a 7.2km city centre course that included lots of tight corners.

With the intermediate sprint bonuses counting towards the general classification, there was hard racing for each one, as riders raced for improving their positions.

Teutenberg won the first sprint, cementing her lead, with Italian road champion, Monia Baccaille (MCipollini-Giambenini) in second place and Emma Johansson, who had suffered some food poisoning, in third. Johansson and Baccaille had started the day seven seconds apart, so every second counted.

Johansson's teammate Sara Mustonen won the second sprint, with Giada Borgato (Italian National Team) in second and Johansson third again - but Baccaille won the third sprint. This, with her third place in the final sprint, was enough for her to overtake Johansson and end up in third place on the overall podium, behind the Netherland Bloeit's Annemiek van Vleuten.

However, the race belonged to HTC-Highroad, whose sprint team controlled the finale, cleverly using the wind and the technical course to their advantage.

After two days of being the protected rider, and with her overall lead unassailable, Teutenberg rode for teammate, 20-year old Australian, Chloe Hosking, using her exceptional tactics to create a gap for Hosking to exploit at 300 metres to go.

"The team worked really hard to get this win," said Teutenberg. "Every day they did everything to keep me safe, particularly yesterday in the cross winds, so it's nice that we were able to pull it off and it was nice for Chloe to win today. She's so fast around the corners, that just leaving a little gap makes it really hard to get her back."

Hosking, who won the Tour of Chongming in 2009 and was Australian National Criterium in Champion in 2010, is perfectly suited to this kind of course. She also won the San Dimas Criterium stage of the San Dimas Stage Race in March.

"It was really something," said Hosking. "The whole team was still at the front of the race with 800 metres to go. We worked so hard yesterday and for the team to put everything into me is something special."

With Hosking and Teutenberg in first and second place on the stage, and team-mate Ellen van Dijk in fourth, HTC-Highroad will be the favourite team for the biggest race of the week – The Tour of Chongming Island the fifth round of the UCI Road World Cup, on Sunday.