19-year-old Jesse Kerrison (Budget Forklifts) has long been knocking on the door for a first professional win in the Tour of Taihu Lake and today he finally got it when he won the dramatic sixth stage of the race. Yesterday's winner Alois Kankovsky (Dukla Praha) originally won the race but was relegated due to irregular sprinting while Yuriy Metlushenko (Torku Seker Spor) defended his overall lead.

After four straight victories by Yuriy Metlushenko at the 2013 Tour of Taihu Lake, it looked like luck had passed on Alois Kankovsky’s side as the Czech sprinter from Dukla Praha doubled up at Changxing but he was later relegated to the 97th rank because of irregular sprinting. Australia’s Jesse Kerrison of Budget Forklifts was declared the winner of stage 6 and therefore opened the record book of his pro career at the age of 19. The outcome of the stormy final sprint reinstated Metlushenko in a comfortable lead overall with an advantage of twenty seconds instead of eight, had Kankovsky remained the stage winner.

“This is not exactly the way I wanted to win”, Kerrison reacted. “I would have preferred to celebrate on stage. Awards ceremonies are great here! But I’m still happy to get my first pro victory at my first UCI race and my first trip overseas. As a team, we rode perfectly. We had one guy [Josh Prete] in the breakaway and we were leading the last kilometer. It’s just in the last 200 metres that we could have done it better. I was thinking that Kankovsky’s move in the sprint was not exactly according to the rules but I had to wait until the judges made a decision and I was back at my hotel by then.”

“With three teams leading out and going from left to right, it was a really nervous last kilometer”, explained Kankovsky who didn’t feel that he had done anything worse than the other sprinters. “I was positioned on fifth wheel, behind Yuriy, because his [Torku Seker Spor] team was very strong in the finale. I knew I was at the right place for fighting for the podium and I had better legs than Yuriy today. Jesse also has a really strong team of young boys to help him. It could be any of us three winning today.”

At the difference of the five previous stages, there was a bit of uncertainty on whether the eight men breakaway would be caught or not. Robert Sweeting (5 hour Energy), Martin Blaha (Dukla Praha), Jesus Del Pino (Burgos-BH), Ko Siu Wai (Hong Kong), Andriy Vasylyuk and Oleksandr Polivoda (Ukraine), Altanzul Altansukh (Malak) and Prete got a maximum lead of 1.50 with 40km to go and were reeled in only in sight of the red flame of the last kilometer.

“My team-mates have done all they could to catch this breakaway, it hasn’t been easy”, Metlushenko underlined. “Sergey Grechyn still managed to bring me to the front of the bunch but there was a strong head wind to finish and I launched my sprint a bit too early. The last thirty or fifty metres looked like never ending. I was exhausted. Jesse and Alois passed me. I can’t say it’s a bad day for me. It’s not bad to cross the line in third place against those two guys but after winning four stages, I don’t feel being where I should be. I’ve done all I could for winning. I’ve even done the first intermediate sprint, I’ve been boxed in and I’ve finished fourth, so I haven’t scored any time bonus there.”

Behind Boris Shpilevski (RTS-Santic) and Vitaly Buts (Ukraine), Metlushenko was beaten for third place by Max Success Sport rookie Jiang Zhi Hui, also aged 19, who returned in the lead of the best Greater China rider classification thanks to that one second bonus he collected at km 46.

“Fortunately, for one more day, I retain the lead in the overall and points classifications”, Metlushenko said. “Tomorrow is another day. Although stages here are quite short and flat, after one month of racing in China, I feel like having the Tour de France in my legs. We’re like racing the third week of a Grand Tour.”

The last third of the nine-day long Tour of Taihu Lake is yet to be contested. Kankovsky seems fresher than Metlushenko as he hasn’t competed in the Tour of Hainan. To regain twenty seconds on his Ukrainian rival isn’t mission impossible for him but who knows the impact of Kerrison’s first success on his confidence for winning? “We have to keep our feet on the ground”, said the former world champion for scratch race. “Today, the breakaway was close to making it. The winner of the Tour of Taihu can still be someone else than one of the four sprinters.”

Stage 7, “Jiulongyiyun” Yixing Dongjiu Circuit will consist in four laps of 29.7km each for a total of 118.8 kilometres.

Result:

1. Jesse Kerrison 2.18.49

2. Yuriy Metlushenko

3. Mark Sehested Pedersen

4. Yannick Martinez

5. Juan Carlos Riutort Martinez

6. Ruslan Karimov

7. Robert Sweeting

8. Xiaoyong Dong

9. Boris Shpilevskiy

10. Vojtech Hacecky

General classification:
1. Yury Metlushenko 14.11.15
2. Alois Kankovsky +0.20
3. Boris Shpilevsky +0.36

4. Jesse Kerrison

5. Jiri Hochmann +0.44
6. Vitaliy Buts +0.45
7. Yannick Martinez +0.48

8. Robert Sweeting

9. Christophe Premont +0.50
10. Kevin Peeters

Points classification:
1. Yury Metlushenko 85
2. Alois Kankovsky 66
3. Jesse Kerrison 55
4. Boris Shpilevskiy 44
5. Jiri Hochmann 34

Youth classification:
1. Jesse Kerrison 14.11.51

2. Mark Sehested Pedersen +0.15

3. Juan Carlos Riutort Martinez +0.17

4. Zhi Hui Jiang +0.18
5. Yat Wai Chan +0.19

Teams classication:
1. ASC Dukla Praha 42.36.30
2. Team Budget Forklifts
3. Ukraine
4. Torku Sekerspor +0.05
5. La Pomme Marseille