Mareczko strikes again in first sprint finish

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Defending champion and seven times stage winner in 2015 Jakub Mareczko (Wilier-Southeast) sprinted to victory just like a year ago on the same finish line of Wuxi Binhu at the end of the opening stage of the Tour of Taihu Lake in China.

The Italian of fended off compatriots Nicolas Marini from Nippo-Vini Fantini and Parkhotel Valkenburg's Marco Zanotti to win the sprint finish, while prologue winner Oleksandr Golovash from Minsk Cycling Club retained the orange leader's jersey. Mareczko moved into the lead in the points classification, which is his goal this year, as the seventh edition of the Tour of Taihu Lake is no longer a purely flat affair.

"It was a good sprint for me", Mareczko declared. "I got a perfect position with two kilometres to go. Earlier on, I tried to go for the intermediate sprints to chase points and time bonuses ahead of the coming stages. I'd like to get the leader's jersey for at least one day. The team prepared very well for the sprint with Rafael Andriato leading me out until 200 metres to go. This win means we can aim for more."

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With a lot of riders on the hunt for the intermediate sprints, the first road stage was a very fast race with a lot of attacks but no breakaway really until Thomas Vaubourzeix of Delko Marseille-Provence-KTM rode away 30km from the finish with Muradjan Halmuratov from Beijing-Innova. Their advantage was only fifty seconds with 20km to go. Interestingly, Vaubourzeix's team-mate Sofiane Mérignat attacked from the bunch at the 15km to go mark.

Three kilometers further, Halmuratov was back in the pack while Vitalii Popkov, a Russian rider with Chinese continental outfit Lvshan Landscape, replaced him at the front. Vaubourzeix secured the most aggressive rider price of the day as he forged on until six kilometres to go. Future WorldTour rider Wang Meiyin, who will join Bahrain-Merida next year, gave a good show for Wisdom-Hengxiang with five kilometres to go but a bunch sprint finish was inevitable and it looked like an easy win for Mareczko who took the bronze medal at the recent under 23 world championship in Doha, Qatar.

His main rival Marini didn't have the best preparation for the Tour of Taihu Lake and so was satisfied with second place.

"I haven't raced for one and half month, since when the Tour of China finished", the Nippo-Vini Fantini rider explained.

"My condition isn't at its best. But I take this second place as a positive result. Riccardo Stacchiotti led me out at perfection. I took Mareczko's slipstream but I never managed to pass him. As I'm getting back into shape, I hope to do better in the coming days. This is my first time at the Tour of Taihu Lake, it's very well organized, so I want to get something out of it."

"Third is also a good result for me", echoed Zanotti. "I'm happy. It was difficult to beat Mareczko today but I'll try to do better when the course will be a bit harder. Today we always rode at 50km/h and we arrived ahead of schedule."

Mareczko and Zanotti have been training partners for ten years on a daily basis as they live just three kilometres apart in Brescia while Marini is only 30km up the road. Stage two from Huzhou-Changxing to Taihu Tourist Resort-Wuxing in the Zhejiang province will showcase the famous Luna Hotel in front of which another bunch sprint is expect before the hilly finish on stage 3 in Anji. 

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