Qinghai Lake: Aguirre with unassailable lead following queen stage summit win

It was a short, but sharp 66-kilometre queen stage of the 17th Tour of Qinghai Lake in Qilian, China on Friday. Featuring three 9.11km laps followed by two hors catégorie climbs to the mountain top finish, only a handful of riders were able to reach the final Stage 6 summit inside two minutes of the winner.

Once again it was Stage 4 winner and current race leader Hernan Aguirre and his Manzana Postobón teammates proving themselves far too strong in the mountains. The 22-year-old Colombian crossed 28 seconds ahead of Italian Antonio Santoro (Monkey Town Continental Team), who finished second on the same stage last year to now-retired Giro d’Italia winner Damiano Cunego.

“I tried to follow the yellow jersey, but was not possible for me,” Santoro told Eurosport. “I try to do my best. I was second last year, it’s good result for me.”

According to the 28-year-old climber, who lives in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, this year’s race to the 4120m summit was strategically different from last year.

“It was different, Cunego attacked in first climb,” recalled Santoro, who is now fourth on general classification at 3:01 behind 2015 race winner Radoslav Rogina (Adria Mobil) at 2:35. “This year, I followed the Manzana guys in the first climb, four guys maybe, we worked together and when the leader attacked I got second.”

Prior to this season, Santoro served a six-month ban and had all his 2017 Qinghai Lake results negated following a positive sample due to an admitted team error involving mistaken medication provided for a stomach bug.

Aguirre’s teammates and countrymen Hernando Bohórquez and Yecid Sierra Sanchez finished third and fourth at 52 and 59 seconds respectively, with Stage 4 runner-up Bohórquez, who is second on GC now at 1:05, wearing Aguirre’s polka-dot jersey for mountains classification.

The story of the day belongs to young Australian runner-turned-cyclist Freddy Ovett (Australian Cycling Academy), who literally rode himself to exhaustion and nearly out of race two days earlier. Ovett finished fifth just 1 minute 13 seconds behind the yellow jersey to move into ninth on GC at 5:15.

“It means a lot, a bit emotional actually,” admitted the 24-year-old Gold Coast native, who required medical attention following a physically draining fourth stage where he finished just outside the top 10 (12th).

“I’ve been targeting this stage for six months and it was pretty surreal sitting on four Colombians’ wheels in their own backyard in an altitude race. My biggest strength is to be able to suffer and sometimes it’s my biggest weakness because I go too hard, but on a climb like today it paid dividends and it means the world.”

Ovett, whose father Steve was an Olympic gold medal-winning runner for Great Britain, said that while a leg cramp in the final kilometre could have hampered his stage result, he is thrilled with his performance and that of his team that won Stage 5 a day earlier.

“I was cramping in my right hamstring with a [kilometre] to go, maybe that [disabled] me from going for a podium spot because I actually felt quite good,” he explained. “But if someone said you are going to finish fifth today this morning — or six months ago — I would have taken it and here I am standing on top of 4100m and top 5 — it’s surreal.

“ACA, this is their first year, and this is the biggest race we are going to do all year. It’s a 2.HC, it’s as big as you can get for a Continental team,” Ovett continued. “Cam Scott winning yesterday, what a fantastic ride by him and not only him but the whole team fully committed for him, and to be banging bars with Pro Continental teams and to be able to pull it off, it’s unbelievable.

“It’s been a fantastic year for ACA, and with this ride today it’s only going to get better.”

Qinghai Lake now returns to the low country at around 3000m in what is expected to be a bunch sprint following a mid-stage catégorie one climb (3,767m) in the 160km route from Qilian to Menyuan.

For full stage and race results, click here.