Philippe Gilbert (BMC) finally broke a drought that has lasted for several months when he won today’s second stage of the Tour of Beijing in an uphill sprint. Poor air quality had forced the organizers to shorten the stage, moving the finish to the top of a small climb where the former world champion held off Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Giant-Shimano) and Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) to take both the stage win and the leader’s jersey.

Most was expected from Philippe Gilbert in the second half of the year where the Belgian was taking aim at the World Championships. However, the Belgian had a poor Vuelta a Espana and didn’t get much pre-race attention for the battle for the rainbow jersey.

However, Gilbert returned to form in Ponferrada where he was one of the strongest riders of the race before he went on to animate Il Lombardia. Having finally found his good condition, he decided to include the Tour of Beijing in his schedule and that proved to be a wise decision.

Today he ended a drought that has made him winless since he took the overall victory in the Ster ZLM Toer in June when he emerged as the strongest on the second stage of the Chinese race. The Belgian held of Reinardt Janse van Rensburg in a tough duel at the top of a short 1km climb whose average gradient of 8% made it a tough affair.

At the start this morning, nothing suggested that Gilbert would be among the protagonists though. A flat finish meant that the stage was expected to be one for the sprinters but poor air quality meant that the organizers and commissaires decided to shorten the stage to just 111km. Instead, the finish line was now drawn at the top of the final categorized climbs, turning it into a stage for the puncheurs.

Nonetheless, it was the sprint teams of Orica-GreenEDGE and Giant-Shimano who combined forces with Daniel Martin’s Garmin-Sharp team to reel in the early escapees, setting the scene for an uphill sprint. Like yesterday, Sky completely dominated the finale, with Chris Sutton and Ben Swift working hard on the front to bring back a late attack from Manuele Boaro (Tinkoff-Saxo) and position Edvald Boasson Hagen for the sprint.

When Swift started to fade, Johan Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEDGE) hit the front and put everyone in their hurt zone. Only two riders had an extra gear as van Rensburg launched a long sprint. Gilbert was the only rider responding to the acceleration and he narrowly passed the South African a few metres before the line to deny Giant-Shimano a double win in the Chinese race. Rui Costa rode strongly to a third place and picked up four important bonus seconds.

As overall leader Luka Mezgec lost a few seconds in the finale and Gilbert already picked up one bonus second in yesterday’s stage, the BMC rider is now the overall leader. He goes into the third stage with a 5-second advantage over van Rensburg. That stage is significantly hillier with 7 categorized climbs but the final summit comes 11km from the finish, meaning that it should be a day for the strong sprinters who can survive the strains of a hard day in the saddle.

A shortened stage

After the opening sprint stage, the fast finishers were again expected to shine on day two which was set to bring the riders over 147.5km from Chong Li to Yanqing. The stage was characterized by long gradual ascents and descents and two categorized climbs but with the final 36.5km being either downhill or flat, a bunch sprint was the expected outcome.

Unfortunately, poor air quality in China forced the organizers to shorten the stage, meaning that the riders would reach the finish already after 111km of racing at the top of the final climb. In the last few days, the conditions have been very poor in Beijing but they have now spread to the surrounding areas and the decision was taken in agreement with the teams, riders and the local organizing committee. This significantly changed the expectations for the stage which was now more suited to puncheurs than to pure sprinters.

A front quartet

All riders who finished yesterday’s stage took the start and they headed out on the short journey under a cold and rainy sky. After the opening attacks, a quartet was formed when Laurent Mangel (FDJ), Julian Alaphilippe (OPQS), Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r) and Fabio Silvestre (Trek) took off.

The four riders were quickly allowed to build an advantage of 1.45 but in such a short stage, the peloton had no intention of giving them too much leeway. Orica-GreenEDGE, Giant-Shimano and Garmin-Sharp started to chase and after 30km, they had brought the gap down to 1.30.

Alaphilippe drops back

Alaphilippe decided to drop back to the peloton, leaving just a trio to press on. Silvestre beat Mangel and Gougeard in the first intermediate sprint while Albert Timmer (Giant-Shimano) rolled across the line in fourth. At the top of the first climb, Gougeard was first ahead of Silvestre and Mangel.

Giant-Shimano, Garmin-Sharp and Orica-GreenEDGE still did all the work, with Cheng Ji, Thomas Dekker and Sam Bewley trading pulls on the front of the group. With 30km to go, they had brought the gap down to just 1.20 and the advantage was now falling rapidly.

Silvestre is dropped

With 20km to go, the escapees were only 45 seconds ahead but now Orica-GreenEDGE signaled that they wanted to slow down a bit. This allowed the escapees to briefly regain some momentum but Garmin soon went back to work, with Dekker riding hard on the front.

Silvestre sprinted ahead to beat Mangel and Gougeard in the final intermediate sprint before he fell back to the peloton. Meanwhile, Dekker had finished his work and it was now Timmer and Bewley working on the front.

Sky take control

Several riders finished their job as the peloton continued to climb up the long, gradual uphill to the finish. While Jens Mouris took over the pace-setting for Orica, Mangel dropped Gougeard, trying to hold off the peloton alone.

Rüdiger Selig (Katusha) hit the front with his teammate Sergei Chernetskii on his wheel and his hard work brought Mangel back with just 4km to go. This was when Sky kicked into action, with Sutton, Swift and Boasson Hagen hitting the front.

Boaro attacks

With 1.5km to go, Sutton swung off and this opening a window for Boaro to launch an attack. The Italian got a gap of a few seconds but Swift gradually upped the pace, bringing him back with 600m to go.

The pace briefly went down when Swift swung off but this was the signal for Chaves to accelerate. Moments later, van Rensburg launched his sprint and only Gilbert managed to pass him.