Marini beats Mareczko to win stage 4

Outclassed by Jakub Mareczko in the first two stages dedicated to the sprinters, Nicolas Marini of Nippo-Vini Fantini took revenge himself by beating his younger Italian rival from Wilier-Southeast at the end of a very long sprint in Wujiang.

Thanks to finishing third Franco-Colombian Leonardo Duque of Delko Marseille-Provence-KTM grabbed four bonus seconds that enabled him to move up into the top in the overall classification. Now third at sixteen seconds, he has become a threat to race leader Cameron Bayly of Attaque Gusto who enjoyed his first day in the orange jersey of the Tour of Taihu Lake.

"Today my team again did a great job but unfortunately my lead out man Riccardo Stacchiotti had a puncture with three kilometres to go," Marini explained.

"At that point I put myself on Mareczko's wheel. I passed him before the line and the good legs I've had these days allowed me to stay ahead of him. With this victory, I've paid the team back. A stage win was the goal. Now I can look for more but without any pressure."

This was Marini's third win of the year, all collected in China, coming after stage 8 of the Tour of Qinghai Lake and stage 5 of the Tour of China I. In his second year as a professional, he has a fully Asian palmares with stage one of the Tour of Japan and the overall classification of the Tour of China II plus four stages last year. The 23-year old Italian is aiming for more in the future as he has already extended his contract with Nippo-Vini Fantini.

It looked like Mareczko was going to win again as he smartly chose the right side of the road for sprinting whereas the wind was blowing from the left, thus forcing Marini to a more difficult task.

"But I started from too far out," Mareczko admitted. "Marini has done well. It's been a head to head fight between and he got it. I had put the team at the front during the last lap to bring the breakaway back. We prepared the sprint really well."

All to play for in the overall classification

Muradjan Halmuratov from Beijing-Innova and Mehdi Rajabikaboodcheshmeh from Tabriz-Petrochemical were the two men in the lead at the half way point in the stage, with an advantage still superior to one minute until 15km to go. Echelons were expected but the wind wasn’t strong enough on the highway section to be covered six times back and forth to make for a 117.4km race.

"Life as a leader is stressful," noted Bayly who experienced that position for the first time ever at international level. "But it's good fun. I was controlling with my team. I had to make sure no GC guy was going away."

With three stages to go, the Attaque Gusto rider is now under the threat from Duque who took four seconds bonus throughout the third place in the final sprint and moved up to third overall the day after coming second uphill.

"In Europe, I was known as a sprinter," said the versatile rider from Marseille who will call it a career after the Tour of Taihu on Saturday.

"I'm on good form after the Tour of Hainan. I sprinted to third place and I remained in third place overall. On my 54 tooth gear, I couldn't go any faster. But I'll try to win the overall. I'll target more time bonus. It's possible the race will be decided on the last day."

Thursday's fifth stage from Nantong to Haimen on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta favours the sprinters again. The Tour of Taihu Lake ends on Sunday.

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