Tour of Guangxi: Groenewegen wins stage 5

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In the stage 5 sprint final of the Tour of Guangxi, Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNl-Jumbo) ended the supremacy of Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) with his eighth win of the season. Groenewegen's bike throw over the line ultimately decided the outcome while Orica-Scott's Magnus Cort finished third, half a wheel back.

Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) retained his red leader's jersey, adding two seconds to his advantage over Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), and will start the final stage as the favourite to claim the overall title. BMC Racing's Nicolas Roche is third overall at 11 seconds to Wellens.

With Movistar launching a team attack in the mountains before the flat run into Guilin, Groenewegen was put into difficulty, but thanks to full team effort, he was able to recover the gap and repay them with the win.

"On the final climb, Movistar was attacking with all its team. The speed was a little too hard, but I had the whole team waiting for me and they brought me back to the first 30 riders and then I could do the sprint and I did it," he said. "In the last kilometre, we had a headwind so I was thinking about going a little later than normal. With 150 metres to go, I went and it was enough. I can go into the winter with a good victory in China."

Having shown his late season form in the stage 4 finale, and again when picking up bonus seconds, Wellens needs to survive just 168.1 kilometres to ensure his overall win. The final stage of the race is again expected to suit the sprinters first taking the riders south then turning back into Guilin for the stage finish and completion of the 2017 WorldTour season.

How it unfolded

From Liuzhou, the Tour of Guangxi peloton clocked on and rolled out for the penultimate and longest stage of the race. The bunch was missing two riders for the stage with Janez Brajkovic (Bahrain-Merida) and Kazushige Kuboki (Nippo-Vini Fantini) both pulling out overnight.

Once onto the course, there was a flurry of attacks as riders attempted to force a breakaway. Roger Kluge (Orica-Scott) and Will Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac) made the first move, but the duo was caught before the intermediate sprint point where Wellens increased his overall lead. The Lotto Soudal rider was second to Danny van Poppel (Team Sky) with Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) third for an important two-second bonus.

The attacking first hour of racing continued with a number or riders forcing small moves before being brought back again. A trio of Clarke, Daniel Oss (BMC) and Fabricio Ferrari (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) was given clearance by the peloton. The advantage for the leaders blew out to over three minutes after the first KOM, and then increased to 5:30 minutes at the halfway mark of the stage, putting Ferrari into the virtual leader's jersey.

On the third and final classified climb of the day, the stage sprung into life with the GC riders making their moves and bid for time on Wellens. Due to the GC fireworks, the gap to the leaders dropped to just one minute.

Off the final climb and on the flat roads into Guilin, the leaders were caught by a reduced peloton of 70 riders with Movistar driving the pace. In the bunch were the majority of the sprinters, minus Max Walscheid, with Quick-Step Floors and LottoNL-Jumbo taking over on the flat run in. ensuing a sprint finish to decide the stage. In the flat straight sprint to the line, Groenewegen timed his effort to allow for the headwind and provided LottoNL-Jumbo with their first win of the race.

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