Elia Viviani wins the opening stage of the Tour of Beijing 2012
Elia Viviani of Team Liquigas-Cannondale wins the opening stage of the Tour of Beijing after his storming performance during the 117 kilometre chase to Bird’s Nest Olympic Piazza.
The cyclist out-sprinted Andrew Fenn of Team Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky after completing the race in a competitive time of 2 hours, 37 minutes and 39 seconds.
The duo settled for the second and the third positions respectively with Kenny Robert Van Hummel of Team Vacansoleil-DCM and Greg Henderson of Team Lotto Belisol securing the fourth and the fifth positions respectively.
Viviani is enjoying a super form and the Italian made full use of his splendid form to bag an important victory at the last World Tour race of the season.
He bagged two stages, the young rider classifications and an overall victory at the Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria including a stage 6 win at the Tour de San Luis 2012.
Viviani finished first at the Gran Premio della Costa Etruschi, second at the Memorial Marco Pantani and a stage victory at the Settimana internazionale di Coppi e Bartali 2012.
Tour of Beijing is the last World Tour race of the season, and hence very important for all the teams and cyclists looking to earn some useful UCI points.
Winner of the race is awarded with a 100 UCI points while the second and the third position holders will claim 80 and 70 points respectively.
UCI points can really help the cyclists in securing good contracts for the season ahead as the points transfer along with the cyclist if they chose to pick up a different team.
Viviani is currently leading the stage 1 classifications with a healthy lead of 4 seconds over Andrew Finn of Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step.
Matthieu Ladagnous of Team FDJ-Big Mat, Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky Procycling and Kenny Robert Van Hummel of Team Vacansoleil-DCM occupies the next three positions with a deficit of 4,6 and 10 seconds respectively.
Top 20 finishers after the Tour of Beijing stage 1 are as below,
1
Elia Viviani (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale
2:37:39
2
Andrew Fenn (GBr) Omega Pharma-Quickstep
0:00:04
3
Matthieu Ladagnous (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat
4
Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling
0:00:06
5
Kenny Robert Van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-Dcm
0:00:10
6
Greg Henderson (NZl) Lotto Belisol
7
Theo Bos (Ned) Rabobank
8
Enrique Sanz (Spa) Movistar
9
Aidis Kruopis (Ltu) Orica-Greenedge
10
Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre - ISD
11
Klaas Lodewyck (Bel) BMC Racing
12
Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-Dcm
13
Lloyd Mondory (Fra) Ag2r La Mondiale
14
Alexey Tsatevitch (Rus) Katusha
15
Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Belisol
16
Heinrich Haussler (Aus) Garmin-Sharp
17
Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Arg) Saxo Bank
18
Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) Movistar
19
Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) Ag2r La Mondiale
20
Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar
Tags: