Tour of Guangxi: Ackermann wins in pouring rain

German national champion Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) continued his run of late-season success and took his ninth win of the 2018 season at the end of the rain-soaked second stage at the Tour of Guangxi.

The 24-year-old Ackermann has won sprints at the Tour de Romandie, the Criterium du Dauphine, the Tour de Pologne as well as winning the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic, and more recently the Brussels Cycling Classic and the GP de Fourmies. He finished fourth on Tuesday’s opening stage but timed his effort well this time, beating Fabio Jakobsen (Quick Step Floors) and stage 1 winner Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo).

Thanks to the time bonuses, Groenewegen kept the leader’s red jersey and now leads Ackermann and Jakobsen by four seconds.

“It was not easy today to get the timing right. It was hectic because of the rain, but also because the last two kilometres were on a big road and totally straight which made it difficult,” Ackermann said.

“Yesterday we messed it up a little, but today everything went perfect. There are a lot of really strong sprinters here, so you also need a little bit of luck to get everything right. Today I had the position and also the legs.”

The 145.2km stage from Beihai to Qinzhou was raced under warm pouring rain. Richie Porte was one of the first to retire to avoid getting soaked and so the Australian brought down the curtain on his time with BMC Racing. He will move to Trek-Segafredo in 2019. Jhonatan Narvaez (Quick Step Floors) was also forced to quit the race after crashing into a race car after a natural break.

Despite the weather, four riders found the courage to go on the attack, with the UAE’s Yousif Mirza (UAE Team Emirates) in the action for a second day. This time he was joined by Alex Dowsett (Katusha-Alpecin), Andrey Grivko (Astana) and Chun Kai Feng (Bahrain-Merida).

Their lead reached 2:20 after 25km but the sprint teams then kept them in check for the rest of the stage with LottoNL-Jumbo and Bora-Hansgrohe doing a lot of the work.

As the kilometres to the finish ticked down, the break began to fall apart as it tried to stay away. Mirza was the first to crack and was distanced, then Feng faltered. With 20km to go Grivko also lost contact, leaving Dowsett and Cavagna to push on in a two-up time trial.

Dowsett also cracked with 10 kilometres to go but Cavagna pushed on alone, in the hope of giving Quick Step Floors yet another victory. However, LottoNL-Jumbo and Bora-Hansgrohe were determined to fight for a sprint finish and Cavagna was swept up with four kilometres to go.

The wide roads made it difficult for one sprint team to control the lead out and Ackermann used his strength and speed down the left side of the road to hit the line first.

Thursday’s 152.2km third stage is from Nanning to the Mashan Nongla Scenic Spot.

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