Kankovsky sprints to victory in Gaoxin

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2007 omnium world champion Alois Kankovsky from Dukla Praha used his skills as a track rider to overtake sprint favourite Boris Shpilevski (Tabriz Petrochemical) and Aaron Kemps (V-Australia) at the end of stage 2 of the Tour of Taihu in Gaoxin, Suzhou. As expected at the start on the beautiful island of Wuzhong in the middle of the Taihu lake, it was another bunch gallop just over two hours later.

“Everyone knew the race would be fast again,” said Shpilevski’s lead-out man Tobias Erler. “Normally I would have waited until the very end to help Boris but I had to take part in the chase earlier on. Normally we would have also let the breakaway one minute ahead but in these conditions, I told my teammates that 40 seconds was the maximum.”

The offensive quartet made up of Vojtech Hacecky (ASC Dukla Praha), Murajan Khalmuratov (Giant-Kenda), Wu Shengjun (Qinghai-Tianyoude) and Han Xuxiang (Hengxiang) didn’t get more than 46 seconds lead. “Tabriz paced for the whole race,” Giant-Kenda’s David McCann pointed out.

Shpilevski was on the right path to win again but some hiccups in the final sprint forced him and some other riders to change their lane. “I had the win in the bag,” thought Australia’s Aaron Kemps. “I’m not totally satisfied with coming second but it’s not bad after all as I increase my lead on GC,” Shpilevski commented.

Kankovsky was delighted. “I came here in the middle of my track season with the idea to fight against the sprinters and win a stage,” said the Czech rider, who was eleventh at the European championship in the omnium one week prior to flying to China. He has chosen the Tour of Taihu over the opening leg of the World Cup in Astana, Kazakhstan, and he hopes to come out of the five-day Chinese race stronger for the next World Cup in Cali, Colombia.

“It’s complicated to meet the criteria to qualify for the London Olympics but that’s my goal,” added the 28-year-old who rides with rainbow stripes on his short and jersey to remind everyone of his world champion standard.

Stage 3 of the Tour of Taihu sees the criterium of Kunchenghu Lake on a circuit of 17km to be covered eight times. With a total of 136km, it’ll be the longest stage of the event, but it should also be fast and well-suited to sprinters and track riders.

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