Boris Shpilevsky wins fourth stage as Muradjan Halmuratov wraps up lead in Tour of China 2011
Tabriz Petrochemical Team’s Boris Shpilevsky showed a good effort and powered to take the fourth stage of Tour of China 2011 on Wednesday, September 14. Muradjan Halmuratov secured the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Mianyang and ended in Suining. The 29-year-old Russian professional road bicycle racer took a total of 4 hours, 30 minutes and 39 seconds to cover the distance of 214.6 kilometres.
Ivan Kovalev of Russian Federation was in second spot and Jonathan Cantwell finished third with the same timing as the Russian. Grischa Janorschke (Nutrixxion Sparkasse) tried his best to take a lead and launched an attacked but failed to hold his pace as
he took fourth place.
After finishing the stage, Janorschke said, “Today it was really tight, which irritates me a lot. The team has started up great for me. I'd like to throw it onto the podium. But we will try in the next few days, the shape is right."
With few kilometres to go, the three cyclists made their breakaway lead and built a gap of a few seconds over the peloton. The trio consisted of Ivan Kovalev (Russian Federation), Boris Shpilevsky (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) and Dirk Muller (Nutrixxion Sparkasse).
Ivan Kovalev took the first sprint of the stage while he failed to increase his pace and Shpilevsky launched an attack to gain maximum points in the second sprint. The trio was caught by the peloton after a few kilometres and a new group formed including,
Pablo Lechuga Rodriguez, Vladimir Efimkin and Sun Jae Jang.
They worked hard together but Rodriguez increased his pace and took the third sprint of the stage. However, in the final kilometres, Kovalev launched an attacked but Boris showed tremendous skill and crossed the line first ahead of the other cyclists.
Previously, Boris took first place in the 2, 6, 8, 9 stages of Tour of Hainan in 2009. He also managed to secure the runner-up spot in Tour of Belgium in 2008.
Giant Kenda Cycling Team’s Halmuratov took the overall standing with a timing of 13 hours, 47 minutes and 13 seconds while Kovalev was in runner-up spot with 3 minutes and 25 seconds down to Muradjan.
Sun Jae Jang finished third with a difference of 3 minutes and 26 seconds ahead of Pablo Lechuga Rodriguez.
The next stage will cover the distance of 143.8 kilometres and it will start in Suining and end in Guang’an.
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