Germany’s Tino Thömel of RTS-Santic emerged as the surprised winner of the bunch gallop in stage 7 of the tenth Tour of Hainan as he was taking part in a different sprint than the Italian trio formed of Jakub Mareczko, second, Andrea Palini, third, and Sacha Modolo, fourth. They were battling on the right side of the road in Dongfang while the 27 year old from Berlin made his way to the left in a very tight finale that required the help of the photo-finish.

“I didn’t know that I had won until the media told me”, Thömel commented. “It was very close. I couldn’t see where the Italians were. I thought the 250 metres mark was enough for me start sprinting. I went full gas on the left side.”

Ironically, despite team-work being often praised by sprinters as the key to success, Thömel won even though RTS-Santic is reduced to two men only, Iran’s Hossein Alizadeh and him. “Our other sprinter Boris Shpilevskiy was a little bit sick so he pulled out to recover for the Tour of Taihu Lake”, said the German who already won the conclusive stages at the Tour de Taiwan and the Tour de Korea – beating Australian sensation Caleb Ewan – this year. “Hossein is specifically a climber. He is still in pain since he crashed twice at the beginning of the Tour of Hainan, he kept me out of the wind during the stage but I had to sprint by myself. Tomorrow unfortunately, I won’t be a great help for him. I’ll be fighting to make the time limit.”