Boris Shpilevsky claims fourth stage win as Muradjan Halmuratov retains lead in Chengdu
Tabriz Petrochemical team’s Boris Shpilevsky showed a good performance and was able to hold his fourth stage victory in Tour of China 2011 in Chengdu on Saturday, September 17. Muradjan Halmuratov retained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The 29-year-old Russian professional cyclists took a lead in the group of large cyclists and took a total of 2 hours, 17 minutes and 15 seconds to cover the distance of 89 kilometres.
Jonggyun Choi (Korea) tried his best to take the lead and caught the leading cyclists but failed to gain and took the 105th place with a difference of 15 seconds ahead of Sungbaek Park and Kasper Jebjerg.
Sergio Carrasco Garcia (Andalucia Caja Granada) was the first cyclist who was part of the breakaway group. The other four cyclists worked well together and gained an advantage of 2 minutes. Laurent Beuret (Atlas Personal) took the first sprint of the stage
ahead of Meiyin Wang and Ivan Kovalev.
According to Fernando Devecchi, "Another day that we are very active and maintain overall positions with both Paul and team. Tomorrow's stage is the only and last chance to go on the attack and embarrass the leader, as the last stage is a 80km circuit."
Evgeny Kovalev launched an attack with Carrasco Garcia but both failed and Kin San Wu increased his pace and took the second intermediate sprint. However, in the closing circuit, Shpilevsky easily beat the other rider while Sebastian Forke (Nutrixxion Sparkasse)
was in second place and Aaron Kemps (V Australia) finished third with the same timing as the Russian.
Previously, Boris took the first place in Clasica Internacional Txuma and Firenze-Pistoia. He also took the two stages and overall standing of Fleche du Sud in 2007.
Giant Kenda Cycling team’s Halmuratov took the overall standing with a time of 21 hours, 28 minutes and 34 seconds. Russian Federation team’s Ivan Kovalev was runner-up spot at 3 minutes and 19 seconds down to Muradjan.
Alexander Serov (Russian Federation) secured third place with a difference of 3 minutes and 22 seconds ahead of Sun Jae Jang and Pablo Lechuga Rodriguez.
The next stage will start in Dujiangyan as all the cyclists will cover the distance of 134 kilometres.
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