Bad luck affects sprint chance in Tour of Taihu Lake

As expected, at only 75 kilometers long, stage 2 of the Tour of Taihu Lake was a fast and furious one. After numerous breakaway attempts, the day ended up in a bunch sprint with the team’s best finisher Quinten de Graeve in 29th, describing the last 20 kilometers as “nervous” in the peloton.

Quinten de Graeve: “The plan was to go for a good result with Hamish in the final sprint. He was with less than 2km to go in a really good position, unfortunately, his chain dropped. So I tried to do the sprint but I started from too far back. I could feel all the energy I spent in the first 25km trying to get into the breakaway, and I felt that hindered me from getting a good result in the sprint.”

“Tomorrow is also a short stage with less than 3 hours of racing time so it will be again a fast race and normally we try with Hamish again to have a top result, today was just bad luck and we believe he can do a really good result in the next days.”

Stage 3 will be another circuit parcours from Wujiang – Wujiang over 116 kilometers.