Fumiyuki Beppu sprinted to victory in the Japan Cup criterium Saturday, beating Ben Swift (Sky) and Steele Von Hoff (NFTO) over the line, to take a huge win for the popular Japanese rider in his home country.

“I am super happy,” Beppu gushed after the short but fast race ended. “I must say a special thank you to my teammates, they worked hard for me all race for the sprint, and also to all the fans for their support. This is just amazing to answer everyone with a win, and to do this in Japan, in front of all these fans, it’s a dream…it’s special.”

The 35.65-kilometer course was made up of 20 laps of a 1.55km circuit on the main street in Utsunomiya, and Trek Factory Racing’s tactics was to control the short race, giving Beppu the opportunity to contest the sprint finish. It was a simple game plan that played out flawlessly and Beppu delivered with a perfectly timed sprint.

“Our plan was to have Fumy make the sprint, so we led the race for most of the time with Bauke [Mollema], Fabian [Cancellara] and Laurent [Didier] pulling at the front,” explained general manager Luca Guercilena. “We saved Popo [Yaroslav Popovych] for the sprint to help Fumy at the end. And then Fumy did really a super, super sprint. He was in the wheel of Ben Swift and in the last 100 meters he came around him - he had a lot of speed from the peloton – and it was a nice victory.

“We are happy to see Fumy win in his country, especially since everyone has really showed us tremendous support here and it’s nice to pay them back with a nice victory.”