Rogina solos to stage, race lead

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Croatian Rogina Radoslav (Loborika) stole the show on stage one of the Tour of Qinghai Lake by outsmarting his opponents to take the victory into Tongren.

Radoslav left eleven other riders in his wake between five and ten kilometres to the finish; the win has him in the tour leader’s yellow jersey and the green jersey of the sprints points competition after day one.

“The stage was very hard and in the end I'm very satisfied to win the race” Radoslav said.

He paid tribute to his teammates at Lobrika who ferried him into the front group when the peloton split in two near the fifty kilometre mark. Radoslav wasn’t expecting the yellow jersey today, “But deep inside i hoped” he smiled.

American Kiel Reijnen (Jelly Belly) came in 39 seconds behind Radoslav with Chinese National Team rider Kun Jiang in third.

The peloton set out from Xining in warm conditions and riders quickly took the initiative to attack, and despite the attempts nothing was successful. The peloton split in two nearing the fifty kilometre point and the first group got out to a 1:15 lead. Three riders broke clear from the lead group on the category two climb sixty-four kilometres into the stage. A trio of Iranians Alieadeh Hossein (Tabriz Petrochemical), teammate Hossein Askari, and Rahim Emami (Giant Asia Racing Team) led the race over the top of the climb and through a 3,355 metre long tunnel which would have been welcome relief from the sun’s rays.

Soon after the climb the trio were joined by ISD-Neri rider Oleksandr Kvachuk from the Ukraine. The quartet opened up a gap on two bunches and stayed away for around seventy kilometres. As the race wound its way alongside the Yellow River and through the Tibetan mountain ranges eight riders bridged the gap to the leaders. Included in the group were the eventual winner Radoslav, along with last year’s overall winner and a pre-race fancy Andrey Mizorov (Tabriz Petrochemical).

With twenty-five kilometres to the finish things became a little confusing for the leaders. “Everybody was just going for it” explained runner-up Reijnen. “A lot of that group were GC guys and we were more concerned about time”.

In last year’s tour Reijnen was sitting nicely on the GC before withdrawing due to illness with two stages remaining. He is back for ‘redemption’ this year. “This year I have packed fifty pounds of food and i’m here to win”, he said among a crowd of locals seeking a photograph with him. Five riders failed to finish and four rode in outside the time limit.

It was a tough opening day for the peloton with almost a quarter of the field already more than thirteen minutes down on the GC. Tomorrow’s stage is a 95 kilometre journey from Tongren to Xunhua. The stage includes a categorie one climb of 3,329 metres at the 56 kilometre point before the descent into the finish.

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