Discovery Channel Marco Polo’s Sergey Kudentsov was regarded as chanceless in stage 5. The race headed into the hills and the sprinters would be dropped. Excactly that happened, but… Sergey hung on to the field longer then the other sprinters and his DCMP team mates were around him to bring him back. Especially Xing Yan Dong did a great job in this. They made it back and Sergey got 3rd in the bunch sprint that resulted. As Tour leader Galimzyanov lost more then 10 minutes, Sergey is in yellow now!

Stage 6 has a bigger mountain in it and very close to the finish, so chances are slim that Sergey can take the overall. The team will have to come up with plan B, or will Sergey show the unexpected again!? One never knows what can happen in a bike race!

After all the crashes in stage 2 and 3 of the Tour of Hainan, one would think that sprinters start to be more cautious. Nothing could be further from the truth, however! Within the last kilometer, the Russian team did everything to block and cut Sergey. When he got around that, he was only beaten by one of the Polish Intel riders, but this guy had sprinted so dangerous that the commissaires disqualified him, so that Sergey won his second stage of the race. The bonification seconds bring Sergey to second on GC as well.

One of the biggest victims of the crashes today was our team member Oggi, who broke his foot after racing very well with the Mongolian national team. All the best, Oggi!!
Earlier in the stage, there was a great break with Thijs in it. It looked like the right one, but Giant closed the gap, together with the Taipeh team. A sign that the Giant-Iranians have big plans for the hilly stages still coming up!

Discovery Channel Marco Polo Team rider Sergey Kudentsov won the first stage of the Tour of Hainan in China. With a strong team performance by Eddy Hollands in the break of the day, Thijs Zonneveld present when about 10 top riders got away and a great team chase by Chinese Liu Yilin and Xing Yan Dong, Brad White who launched Sergey in a good position into the last kilometer and Sergey finishing like a rocket passing the remainders of the break-away and taking this stage win with two bike length!

We saw a very windy stage number one in the Tour of Hainan, from Sanya to Xinglong over 169 kilometers.

The first 44 kilometers were over 10 laps in the city of Sanya. Because the time differences were still small from the prologue, the sprints for bonus seconds were important. It was Chinese Ma Haijun who managed to catch 2 seconds which brought him virtually in the lead. He was later also present in a 8 rider chase group who joined the 5 riders in a break. They stayed away for about 50 kilometers but never managed to take over one minute. Also number two in GC Australian Robert Lyte was present in this group. Then tour leader Galimzyanov from Russia managed to reach this front group by himself against the strong headwind, but this was the end of the cooperation and it all regrouped.

With about 10 kilometers to go, 4 riders seemed to go for the stage victory, Askari Housein from Giant Asia, Lam Kai Tsun from Hong Kong, Roman Klimov from Russian National Team and Zou Rongxi from China. Discovery Channel Marco Polo Team started the chase and got joined by the Intel Action Team who drove into the last kilometer with the break still up the road.

It was yellow jersey Galimzyanov who opened the sprint passing three of the break-away riders, however Zou Rongxi seemd to still make it, but it was Sergey Kudentsov from the Discovery Channel Marco Polo Team who launched his final jump to win the stage with two length.

Zou Rongxi became second, Galimzyanov third, Jamsran Ulzii-Orshikh from the Mongolian National Team fouth and Chinese Ma Haijun fifth.

The bonus seconds for the third place saved the yellow jersey for Galimzyanov, with Ma Haijun on 2 seconds, Zou Rongxi at 5 seconds.

4 Pascal Hungerbuehler (Swiss National)

5 Robert Lyte (FRF Couriers – Australia)

6 Kazuya Okazaki (Nippo Meitan)

7 Peter Herzig (FRF Couriers – Australia)

8 Sergey Kudentsov (Discovery Channel Marco Polo Team)

9 Bradley White (Discovery Channel Marco Polo Team)

10 Jeremy Maartens (South Africa National)