One day after winning the first stage of the Tour of Taihu Lake, Yury Metlushenko underlined his status as the fastest rider in the Chinese race when he won the bunch sprint on the second stage. He beat Alois Kankovsky and Yannick Martinez after a thrilling race where a breakaway almost stayed away to the finish.

Ukraine’s Yuriy Metlushenko of Torku Seker Spor made it two in a row as he won stage 2 that consisted in eight laps around the dead flat Shuangshanandao Island on the Yangtze river. In a tight sprint finish, he beat Czech track specialist Alois Kankovsky who is no stranger to Chinese races as he recently won the Tour of China II and Frenchman Yannick Martinez of La Pomme Marseille.

“I’ve thought I’d lost the jersey and the race when eight riders were still away at bell lap”, Metlushenko explained. “It’s unbelievable that the bunch came back together but other teams closed the gap: Burgos-BH, Blue water and the Portuguese [Banco Bic-Carmim]. I was left with only two team-mates, Ahmet Örken and Sergey Grechyn who led me out and yelled at the last kilometer mark: ‘You can’t fail!’ I can’t ask too much from my other team-mates who are suffering the jet lag.”

Christophe Prémont (Crelan-Eupony), Robert Sweeting (5 Hour Energy), Frantisek Sisr (Dukla Praha), Jacob Hauffman (Budget Forklifts), Rasmus Guldhammer (Blue water), Clément Saint-Martin (La Pomme Marseille), Vitaly Buts (Ukraine) and Ruslan Karimov (Uzbekistan) had an advantage of 1.20 with 20km to go but the wind hadn’t created enough damage yet. The average speed of stage 2 was 47.277km/h.

“It was another fast running at a crazy speed and Yuriy got it again but I’ll beat him before the end of this race”, promised best young rider Jesse Kerrison of Budget Forklifts who finished fourth after losing the slipstream of his lead out man with 1.5km to go. “In the echelons, it was a good day for us, we showed the peloton that we can be respected”, the Queenslander added. “For me, this is a great learning experience.”

Third placed Martinez was initially working for his team-mate Justin Jules but realized with 300 metres to go that he’d better sprint for himself. “I want to ride GC here after I grabbed some time bonus yesterday in the intermediate sprint and today at the finish”, said the Frenchman who moved up to fourth overall with the same time as Kerrison.

With seven stages to go, Metlushenko might already have overcome the hardest part of the Tour of Taihu Lake. “Now I can think of the general classification”, he admitted ahead of stage 3 from Nantong in the outskirts of Shanghai to the Su-Tong science and technology park of Qidong after a 98km long race.

Result:

1. Yury Metlushenko 2.43.43

2. Alois Kankovsky

3. Yannick Martinez

4. Jesse Kerrison

5. Justil Jules

6. Xiaoyong Dong

7. Jiri Hochmann

8. Kevin Peeters

9. Zhihui Jiang

10. Alex Wohler

General classification:

1. Yury Metlushenko 4.20.30

2. Alois Kankovsky +0.14

3. Jesse Kerrison +0.17

4. Yannick Martinez

5. Jiri Hochmann +0.19

6. Vitaliy Buts +0.20

7. Boris Shpilevsky +0.21

8. Christophe Premont +0.22

9. Justin Jules +0.23

10. Kevin Peeters

Points classification:

1. Yury Metlushenko 33

2. Alois Kankovsky 22

3. Jesse Kerrison 20

4. Jiri Hochmann 14

5. Yannick Martinez 13

Youth classification:

1. Jesse Kerrison 4.20.47

2. Zhi Hui Jiang +0.06

3. Alex Wohler

4. Yat Wai Chan

5. Juan Carlos Riutort Martinez

Teams classication:

1. ASC Dukla Praha 13.02.39

2. Team Budget Forklifts

3. Ukraine

4. Torku Sekerspor +0.05

5. Crelan-Euphony