Polivoda doubles up at Qinghai Lake for Kolss triple

After struggling to find the podium in the first six days of racing at the 16th Tour of Qinghai Lake (2.HC), the Kolss Cycling Team hit the trifecta in Linxia, China on Monday.

Two days after Kolss rider and former race winner Myhaylo Kononenko won Stage 7, teammates Oleksandr Polivoda and Vitaliy Buts bookended the Stage 9 podium with after the second straight 200-kilometre plus outing of the 13-stage UCI Asia Tour road race. The victory was Kolss third straight and second for Polivoda, who also won Stage 8.

After Buts claimed the stage’s sole intermediate sprint, the Kolss duo double-teamed Italian Jacopo Mosca of team Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia inside the final 1500 metres of the 235km stage from Ping’an to take the one-three finish out of a select group of nine riders.

“This is a typical race from our team and we very, very happy,” the five-time Qinghai stage winner told Eurosport after the race. “My performance now is perfect and I’m in the top of my season.”

After several mid-week high mountain stages, Polivoda is happy the race has returned to lower altitude and to parcours more ideally suited for his Ukrainian-registered UCI Continental team.

“I am not climber, I am not 60kg” he said. “My strategy in the climbs is to no lose too many minutes. After climb today in the last 15km we go down and in the last 10km we had two riders.

“With this tactic it is impossible not to win from these legs from these riders.”

Current race leader Yonathan Monsalve (Qinghai Tianyoude) of Venezuela finished in a third group 2 minutes 11 seconds back on the stage winner, but remains in yellow for the fourth consecutive day, followed by Colombian and current KOM Mauricio Ortega (RTS-Monton Racing) at 20 seconds back.

German Bjorn Thurau (Kuwait-Cartucho.es) trails a further four seconds back in third at +0:24.

Previous mountains leader and former stage winner Ilia Koshevoy (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia) is fourth at 1:22, followed by Monkey Town’s Antonio Santoro at 1:49.

Kazakhstan’s Yevgeniy Gidich moves back into the blue ‘Best Asian Rider’ jersey after lending it to his Vino-Astana Motors teammate Stepan Astafyev for a day.

The 21-year-old Gidich won two stages at Qinghai Lake last year, and currently sits just three points back of current points leader and Stage 4 winner Ahmet Örken of Torku Şekerspor.

Riders will enjoy a rest day in before the resuming with the 140km tenth stage on Wednesday, a luxury Polivoda would rather put off another day.

“Maybe we want one day more for another win because of this performance, but we will go to next city and take a coffee, relax and maybe small celebration with team,” admitted Polivoda. 

Buts, himself a two-time reigning national champion and former Qinghai stage winner, agreed with Polivoda.

“The first week of the race was a problem with acclimatisation and our performance suffered,” explained Buts, regarding the race’s base altitude of more than 2500m that reached to more than 4000m on Stage 6 making Qinghai Lake the highest altitude bike race in the UCI calendar.

“Now we are very strong and we want win even more.”

1. Oleksandr Polivoda, UKR, Kolss Cycling Team, 5:15:36

2. Jacopo Mosca, ITA, Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia, s.t.

3. Vitaliy Buts, UKR, Kolss Cycling Team, +0:04

1. Yonathan Monsalve, VEN, Qinghai Tianyoude, 33:46:26

2. Mauricio Ortega, COL, RTS-Monton Racing, +0:20

3. Bjorn Thurau, GER, Kuwait-Cartucho.es, +0:24

Race leader (yellow jersey): Yonathan Monsalve, VEN, Qinghai Tianyoude Cycling Team

Points leader (green jersey): Ahmet Örken, TUR, Torku Şekerspor

Mountains leader (polka dot jersey): Mauricio Ortega, COL, RTS-Monton Racing

Best Asian rider (blue jersey): Yevgeniy Gidich, KAZ, Vino-Astana Motors

Teams classification: Kuwait-Cartucho.es, 101:39:41