Teamwork Lifts Gioux at Tour of Taihu Lake

15 October 2017

Race: Tour of Taihu Lake, stage 5

Start/Finish: Nantong/Haimen, China

Distance: 148 kilometers

HAIMEN, CHINA – Wet weather picked up again on Sunday for Team Novo Nordisk in China, with warm showers falling throughout stage five, the longest race-day of the week, topping three hours in the saddle at the 2017 Tour of Taihu Lake.

Plenty of tough racing just the same, with the team shifting roles and responsibilities again in a crash-free finale that put Romain Gioux inside the top 20 with clear progress in the final 400m to the finish line.

Spaniard Jon Aberasturi stole thunder from Jakub Mareczko to defeat the Italian for the stage win, Belarus Muzychkin third.

Dry weather is expected Monday, but racing so close to the Chinese sea coast south of Shanghai in mid-October, it’s not unusual for off-again, on-again showers, however warm, to gather along the flatlands and then sweep daily across the lake.

Chris Williams:

“It was wet and filthy, 148k, longest stage of the tour. Dead flat and it came down to a bunch sprint, and it got very, very messy. We worked for Charles into the last 500m, and he was up there with Romain at the final turn.”

Team Novo Nordisk Sport Director Pavel Cherkasov:

“We controlled the gap, main bunch swallowed the break with 15k. Bunch Sprint. Good team effort to put Charles and Romain in position for the sprint. Team spirit is good.”

Team Novo Nordisk races all week in China at the Tour of Taihu Lake, then moves across to Japan for a pair of one-day races before finishing the 2017 season at China’s Tour of Hainan.

Results: