Moscon wins Tour of Guangxi

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Gianni Moscon (Team Sky) finished safely within the peloton to secure overall victory at the second edition of the Tour of Guangxi. Moscon beat Bora-Hansgrohe's Felix Grossschartner with Sergei Chernetski taking the final spot on the podium. Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Floors) took his second sprint victory of the week beating Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) to the line in Guilin.

Moscon went into the final stage with a nine-second lead over Grossshcartner after winning the uphill finish on stage 4. The Italian enjoyed a reasonably comfortable day on the relatively flat final 164-kilometre effort to maintain that advantage over the Austrian.

Stage six proved to be a wet end to what was already a particularly wet week for the peloton. With the conditions, a number of riders chose not to take the start, including Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) and Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) who had both been involved in the finish line crash on stage 5.

Once again, the fight for the breakaway was hotly contested with a number of strong moves going before the peloton finally relented and let one go. A group of four went clear with just under 20 kilometres ridden: Wang Meiyin (Bahrain-Merida), Nathan Van Hooydonck (BMC Racing), Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ) and Jose Gonçalves (Katusha-Alpecin).

A high pace behind the quartet was maintained and two more riders in Tosh Van Der Sande (Lotto Soudal) and Lenard Hofstede (Team Sunweb) were able to bridge the gap. At 23 kilometres, the gap was only 25 seconds for the six as Team Sky worked on the front.

Eventually, the breakaway was allowed to build up a lead over the peloton, though it increased only gradually. After 100 kilometres of racing, the escapees had gained 3:30 on the bunch behind but that would be quickly cut down over the two categorised climbs of the day. Having been in a late break the day before and a failed attempt at an escape earlier in the day, Andrey Grivko (Astana) had another attempt at breaking free of the clutches of the peloton. It would prove a fruitless task as he was reeled back in soon after and the gap to the original break was cut to just over a minute.

With 20 kilometres remaining the six riders had just 44 seconds and a sprint seemed all but inevitable as Quick-Step and Bora-Hansgrohe moved to the front to assist Team Sky in their efforts. The breakaway held off the peloton a little while longer but with 10 kilometres to go they began shedding riders.

Gonçalves was the first to go and the rest would soon follow, leaving the way for the fast men to have another tilt at a stage victory. Ackermann continued his consistent run to finish second but it was Jakobsen that had the turn of speed to give him his second of the week. Bora-Hansgrohe got another rider on the podium with Rudi Selig pipping Reinardt Janse van Rensburg to third.

Full Results