Peron Sprints to 6th on Stage 1 of Tour of Taihu Lake

10 October 2019

Race: Tour of Taihu Lake – Stage 1

Start/Finish: Wuxi Binhu/Wuxi Binhu

Distance: 88.8 kilometers

Wuxi, China— Italian Andrea Peron flew the flag for Team Novo Nordisk this Thursday scoring a sixth place on the first stage of Tour of Taihu Lake.

With just 88.8 km and a predominantly flat course, stage 1 was always predicted to end in a bunch sprint so the focus was to keep the race controlled until the last lap of the urban circuit in Wuxi.

Team Novo Nordisk covered the early attacks and no legitimate breakaway was ever established. 30-year-old Peron, who already achieved two top 10 results in World Tour events this season, was well protected during the day and kept free of any incidents.

In the final sprint Marco Benfatto (Androni Giocattoli) edged out Dylan Kennett (St George) to claim his seventh win of the season. Peron was in prime position entering the final 1.5 km but ultimately had to settle for sixth after a chaotic gallop to the finishing line.

The world’s first all-diabetes professional cycling team will tackle the 101 km stage 2 of Tour of Taihu Lake this Friday where another bunch sprint is expected in the finale in Hufuzhen.

Andrea Peron

“Today the conditions were hotter but not unbearable. There was never a proper breakaway as the boys controlled the key moves at the start of the stage. In the final sprint there was a bit of chaos. The pace was high and then dropped before it kicked out again. I suppose there were many riders with fresh legs so this complicated things quite a bit. I took sixth place but hope we can achieve better results in the coming days”