The final 168.3 km long stage, which featured two categorised climbs in the last third of the race, took the riders from Guilin to its southern outskirts before heading back north to conclude the race in the city centre. After a rainy start, five riders were able to escape following a few kilometers of racing, and extended their lead to a maximum of 3:20 minutes during the course of the day. BORA – hansgrohe swapped turns at the front of the peloton to keep the advantage of the quintet at a reasonable distance. With Max Schachmann, who rode attentively at the head of the field, the squad from Raubling put down the hammer in order to catch up to the four remaining leaders who still had an advantage of 1:20 with less than 20 km to go. Although the break worked well together, their efforts ultimately had to remain in vain, and they were caught 5 km ahead of the finish line. The sprinter teams soon began to jostle for position over the final kilometres and in the chaotic proceedings, a few riders hit the deck in a crash, in which no BORA – hansgrohe rides were involved. After Rudi Selig rode a perfect lead-out for his teammate, Pascal took the wheel of J. Molano, and overtook the Colombian sprinter in the final few metres to take a convincing win. With this, BORA – hansgrohe ends the Tour of Guangxi with the points jersey, two stage wins and three second places with Pascal Ackermann, as well as the fifth place of Felix Großschartner in the general classification.
Result
01 P. Ackermann 3:38:10
02 J. Molano +0:00
03 T. Roosen +0:00
04 R. Selig +0:00
From the finish line
“This is the first time that I’ve been able to end my season with a win. It wasn’t necessarily an easy stage, with the tempo on the way back to Guilin being really high. The teamwork from the guys today was fantastic. In the final corner, I slipped somewhat, but was able to find my position in the sprint train relatively quickly. This is a great stage win, and the entire team deserved it. We wanted to win at least one stage here, and we’ve more than achieved our goal.” – Pascal Ackermann
“Once again, we invested everything into ensuring that the stage would end with a sprint, and the team did an outstanding job. We controlled the race well, Max put a lot of effort into this, and Felix also assisted in bringing back the breakaway towards the end of the stage. All of the others prepared Pascal for the sprint. We wanted to ride at the front of proceedings over the final few kilometres, and we were able to do that successfully. It’s a great win to cap off a successful season, and we’re very happy with the result.” – Enrico Poitschke, Sports Director
