Irvine finding his sprinting legs in Hainan

In a repeat of the opening day, stage 2 of the Tour of Hainan came down to a big bunch sprint. Declan Irvine contested the sprint for Team Novo Nordisk again and bettered his 22^nd on the first stage to sixteenth today.

At 178 kilometers long, the stage was almost double the distance of the opening day. The peloton was content for a breakaway of five riders to go up the road. Three more tried to bridge but did so unsuccessfully, spending a large portion of the day in no man’s land.

Once everyone was brought back it was clear it would be a day for the sprinters.

“Hamish and I talked with 20km to go and he wasn’t feeling so good so said I should go for it again,” Irvine said. “I was still a little off the pace and getting used to sprinting again and got 16^th. We don’t know if it was the heat and humidity affecting the guys because it was very hot today again but that doesn’t really affect me. I haven’t sprinted in a long time so the kick and knowing where to be in the bunch is something I have to get used to again.”

“We were riding quite well as a team. David was helping me into the last 5km and I found Quinten with 2km to go then it got super chaotic in the sprint. I ended up surfing wheels and managed to do better than yesterday.”

Stage 3 will see the race’s first categorized climbs of this year’s edition. A long race again at 181 kilometers, the peloton will navigate four major climbs with the last one topping out at just 6 kilometers to the finish.