Planet Makes Top 20 at Tour of Taihu Lake Prologue

09 October 2019

Race: Tour of Taihu Lake, Prologue

Start/Finish: Wuxi/Wuxi

Distance: 5.5 kilometers

Wuxi, China— Team Novo Nordisk kicked off Tour of Taihu Lake, their last stage race of the season, this Wednesday with a 5.5km prologue. Charles Planet clocked the fastest time for the team, crossing the line in 17th position, 23 seconds shy of the day’s winner.

The flat, short parcours in Wuxi made the prologue a fast affair and Matthias Brandle (Israel Cycling Academy) took advantage of his time trialling skills to power to a convincing win in six minutes and seven seconds.

The wind played a key role on the day and affected those who started later in the day, including most of Team Novo Nordisk’s riders. Nevertheless, Planet managed to take a solid 17th place followed closely by Isle of Man’s Sam Brand who rounded off the top 20.

The world’s first all-diabetes professional cycling team will continue to race in China this Thursday on stage 1, a circuit in Wuxi Binhu totaling 88.8 km.

Charles Planet

“It was a really fast, power prologue with almost no corners. We did our best, the wind was blowing a bit today. The first riders started with no wind but then it started to pick up and got stronger and stronger during the day. I started halfway in the start list so I was a bit affected by the wind but I did my best, I went all out and finished really close to the best riders. This gives my confidence for the next stages.”