Kump holds off Zanotti for fifth stage win at Qinghai Lake

Zhongwei, CHINA—Slovenian sprinter Marko Kump (Adria Mobil) is bringing yet another stuffed ‘Tibetan Yak’ podium prize home to his 2-year-old son, Staš, after picking up his fifth stage win – the team's sixth – at the 14th ‘Qinghai Rural Credit Cup’ Tour of Qinghai Lake (UCI 2.HC) on Friday, July 17.

With the victory, the 26-year-old former Tinkoff-Saxo rider ties compatriot Luka Mezgec (Team Giant-Alpecin) for second most stage wins – just three shy of Italian Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida).

The 120-kilometre ‘Peak’ city circuit in Zhongwei, China, kicked off with a seven-man break inside 2km. The lead group consisted of Edgar Nohales Nieto (Qinghai Tianyoude), Mow Ching Ying (HKSI), Alessandro Malaguti (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Luis Lemus (Airgas-Safeway), Enea Cambianica (Meridiana-Kamen), Mykhaylo Kononenko (Kolss-BDC) and Mirko Tedeschi (Southeast), and the septuplets opened a 2 minute 30 second gap inside 10km.

The gap closed at 38km to 1:20 just before the first intermediate sprint won by Kononenko, followed by Tedeschi and Lemus. Kononenko would go on to claim the second and third sprints as well.

Just before one lap to go, the peloton led by Parkhotel-Valkenburg trio James Judd, Joris Blokker and Bob Schoonbroodt over the majority of the eight-lap city circuit shut down the break to move teammate Marco Zanotti into position of the bunch sprint.

“I was hoping to recover from yesterday,” admitted the 20-year-old Judd (NZL) referring to the 240km stage 11 on Thursday. “But once we got word to reel in the break, I knew we were in for a long day.”

For Zanotti it was another close call.

“We wanted to put someone in the breakaway, but we couldn’t,” said Zanotti (ITA), who has three podiums in the race. “So we decide to try for the sprint solution, otherwise there was no chance to win.

“In the sprint I was really close to Kump and maybe tomorrow is the day.”

However, it was Kump on top with Zanotti second and Liam Bertazzo (Southeast) third. Italian Mattia Gavazzi, who has claimed three stages during the race including two of the last three, finished fourth after suffering from a cold.

“Yesterday I was close,” said Kump on his second-place finish to the 32-year-old Gavazzi. “Today, maybe I was again on the wrong side close to the barrier, but I was much faster than yesterday.”

The win marks 16 first-place finishes this season. When asked what’s next for the stage winner of the Tour of Croatia and Tour of Slovénie, Kump was quick to answer:

“I think 20 is a good number.”

The 13-stage, 2,027-kilometre Asia Tour race concluded on Saturday with the 135km ‘Tian You De’ stage 13 circuit race from Shuidonggou to Yinchuan.

Currently Radoslav Rogina (Adria Mobil) sits atop general classification with a 3-second lead on former race leader and 2012 winner Hossein Alizadeh (RTS-Santic), who has wrapped up the blue jersey for ‘Best Asian Rider.’

Colombian Francesco Colorado (Ningxia Sports Lottery-Focus) has already secured the polka dot mountains classification, while Kump has an unassailable lead on the points classification.

Aaron S. Lee | Follow on Twitter

Photos courtesy Daebong Kim | 7Cycling