Gavazzi outsprints Kump to claim a stormy stage 8 in Qinghai Lake

After a couple of near misses, Italian Mattia Gavazzi records a win over three-time stage winner and points leader Marko Kump at Tour of Qinghai Lake...

Linxia, CHINA—Third time was the charm for Italian Mattia Gavazzi (Amore & Vita-Selle SMP) as he finally got the best of three-time stage winner and current points leader Mark Kump (Adria Mobil) with a bunch sprint victory over the Slovenian on a rain-soaked, crash-marred 126-kilometre ‘China Sports Lottery’ stage 8 in the 14th ‘Qinghai Rural Credit Cup’ Tour of Qinghai Lake (UCI 2.HC) on Sunday, July 12.

Stage 4 winner Ivan Savitsky (RusVelo) finished third with stage 6 runner up Liam Bertazzo (Southeast) in fourth on a day that was a complete turnaround from the hot, dry conditions on the 190km race the day before.

“The first stage I lose by a little bit,” Gavazzi told Eurosport through one of his team’s sports directors Vladimir Starchyk. “The second stage was dangerous and I didn’t want to take a risk.

“But I am confident about my power on the straight finish, and I believe in my legs so it is nice for the team to finally get a victory.”

The 32-year-old sprint specialist took two stage wins at Qinghai Lake last year, as well as a stage win at both Tour of China I and II, but Starchyk believes Gavazzi is in better form this year and has targeted more stage wins before the race is done.

“It was not very good weather, but it was not cold and the team was very motivated win the stage,” explained Starchyk, who is on his eighth Tour of Qinghai Lake – six as a rider and two as team personnel. “The guys were perfect and they were working hard for Mattia, who is the best in the world.

“Even though he won two stages last year, he was not in his best form like he is this season,” he continued. “He feels much better and we have more opportunities ahead. I hope we can sprint all stages because we are racing every day for win.”

The race started cautiously under slippery conditions, with the peloton sticking close together until Matej Mugerli (Synergy Baku), Genki Yamamoto (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Jiao Pengda (China Continental Team of Gansu Bank)) animated the race by taking out the first intermediate sprint at the 30km mark.

A breakaway soon followed, with Mirko Tedeschi (Southeast), Wesley Sulzberger (Navitas-Satalyst), Connor McCutcheon (AirGas-Safeway), Andriy Kulyk (Kolss-BDC) and Ioannis Tamouridis (Synergy Baku) joining the first sprint trio. The eight-man group opened up a 2-minute gap at 34.6km.

Italian Tedeschi, Ukrainian Kulyk and Japan’s Yamamoto went in order over the category 2 king of the mountain at an elevation of 2,326m at the 44.2km checkpoint.

Afterwards, only five riders remained, with Australian Sulzberger, American McCutcheon, China’s Jiao, Yamamoto and Tedeschi holding a 1 minute 55 second gap at 58.3km.

Tamouridis, Kulyk and Yamamato went one, two, three in the second intermediate sprint before the break was caught by the peloton with 25km remaining.

The 13-stage, 2,027-kilometre Asia Tour race continues on Monday with current race leader and best Asian rider Hossein Alizadeh (RTS-Santic) of Iran trying to defend his 3 second lead over Croatian Radoslav Rogina (Adria Mobil) on the 203km stage 9 from Linxia to Dingxi.

“Today we have rain but not cold,” said 27-year-old Alizadeh, a 2012 stage and race winner. “It was a good day after very hard stage yesterday. Today was recovery for us.

“I think we have a very, very hard time keeping the leaders jersey,” the 16-time Qinghai Lake race leader concluded. “But if I can keep it tomorrow, we will for sure do our best to keep the yellow for the remainder of the race.”

Aaron S. Lee | Follow on Twitter

Photo: Daebong Kim | 7Cycling