2017 Gree UCI WorldTour Tour Of Guangxi stage 1 

Fernando Gaviria sprints to victory in Beihai

Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria of Quick-Step Floors claimed his first victory in China as he outsprinted the rest of the field on the sea side in Beihai at the inaugural 2017 Gree UCI WorldTour Tour Of Guangxi. Dutch ace Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Germany’s Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) rounded out the podium.

122 riders started stage 1 of the inaugural 2017 Gree UCI WorldTour Tour Of Guangxi to complete two laps of 53.7km each. It was a very active start until four riders went clear at km 9: Andre Grivko (Astana), Silvan Dillier (BMC), Nick Dougall (Dimension Data) and Rémi Cavagna (Quick-Step Floors). As they remained under the threat of a very active peloton, it took them twenty kilometers to increase their lead to 30 seconds. Dillier was clearly targeting the intermediate sprints. He won the first one at km 23.9. The time gap went up to 1.15 after 30km of racing, which inclined Orica-Scott to help LottoNL-Jumbo in the chase. Dillier also passed first in Guanton Hill at km 40. He showed the same determination to win the second intermediate sprint at the half way point at km 53.4 and the third one at km 77.9.

The Swiss rider from BMC pursued his effort along with Cavagna who went solo with 25km to go. The Frenchman got a maximum advantage of one minute 20km before the end. Jonathan Lastra (Caja Rural-RGA) bridged the gap by himself after the second time atop Guantou Hill with 9km remaining, Cavagna becoming the first King of the Mountain of the race. It was all together with 4km to go. Perfectly led out by his team that was left out of the chase due to the presence of Cavagna ahead, Gaviria took his eleventh victory of the 2017 season and the lead of the 2017 Gree UCI WorldTour Tour Of Guangxi before stage 2 from Qinzhou to Nanning (156.7km).