Gavazzi wins circuit race as Rogina dons yellow on stage 10 at Qinghai Lake

Italian Mattia Gavazzi on best behaviour during second stage win at Tour of Qinghai Lake, while Croatian Radoslav Rogina collects bonus time to slip into GC lead…

Tianshui, CHINA—With nine stages done and dusted, stage 10 of the 14th ‘Qinghai Rural Credit Cup’ Tour of Qinghai Lake (UCI 2.HC) kicked off with Italian Mattia Gavazzi (Amore & Vita-Selle SMP) sprinting to his second win following a well-deserved rest day on Wednesday, July 15.

Gavazzi, who won stage 8 before being relegated the following day for punching four-time stage winner Marko Kump on stage 9, claimed his fourth stage win in two years at Qinghai Lake after a mad dash to close the eight-lap, 100km ‘Tian You De’ Tianshui circuit race over Boris Shpilevsky (RTS-Santic) and Mykhaylo Kononenko (Kolss-BDC), who was relegated to fifth moving Kump and Marco Zanotti (Parkhotel-Valkenburg) into third and fourth respectively.

“After rest day, I ride on the back and stay there for the first two laps with the team on the front controlling the race,” Gavazzi told Eurosport. “This is my race and I go to the front when ready to set up for the sprint.

“It was a good day and now we race for a third win.”

When asked about the relationship between himself and Kump following their dispute on stage 9, Gavazzi quickly shrugged it off with "no problemo."

While the 32-year-old was redeeming his ‘bad boy’ image with a smile and a win, Croatian Radoslav Rogina (Adria Mobil) was picking up much needed bonus time by finishing third and first in the first and third intermediate sprints respectively to lift the yellow leaders jersey off Hossein Alizadeh (RTS-Santic) and take the overall lead by one second with three stages remaining.

“It’s not over,” said Rogina after the race. “We started the race to catch the seconds and for me to just finish. The team worked very good today and made it look easy especially when you have someone like Kump in front of you – I had no worries.”

“I hope we can defend the jersey to the end.”

eThe race was animated after the second intermediate sprint on the fourth lap when Volodymyr Diudia (China Continental Team of Gansu Bank), Samir Jabrayilov (Synergy-Baku), Griffin Easter (AirGas-Safeway) and   Matteo Busato (Southeast) attacked to create a 30-second gap. The group was joined three laps later by a seven-man chase group led by Easter’s teammate – and two-time Mexican national road race champion – Luis Lemus and two ParkHotel-Valkenburg riders Bob Schoonbroodt and Joris Blokker before being caught in the closing 300 metres.

“Oh man, we didn’t want them to catch us that’s for sure,” said Easter, who has participated in several long breaks over the past few stages. “We were working hard and after the second intermediate sprint the bunch let up and I went as hard as I could.

“It was close,” he added. “One of these times it will work out hopefully.”

The 13-stage, 2,027-kilometre Asia Tour race resumes on Thursday with the longest stage of the race. The 240km ‘Peak’ stage 11 from Tianshui to Pingliang features two intermediate sprints and catagorised climbs, including both a cat 2 and cat 3.

While the yellow jersey is still up for grabs, the polka dot mountains classification jersey has already been secured by Francisco Colorado (Ningxia Sports Lottery-Focus). For Alizadeh, the 2012 winner and 17-time race leader is still mathematically in the hunt for general classification. The 27-year-old Iranian has theoretically sewn up the blue jersey for best Asian rider barring any incidents, as has the green points classification jersey worn by four-time stage winner Marko Kump (Adria Mobil).

“We are very happy,” said Kump. “There are still a few stages to go and our first priority is to defend the yellow jersey and then we see day by day if there is a bunch sprint. If there is and we feel good, we will also try for another stage win.”

Aaron S. Lee | Follow on Twitter

Photo: Daebong Kim | 7Cycling