Tour of Guangxi (et. 1)
Nuno Bico takes 18th place at first of predictable three sprint finishes prior to Queen stage in Tour of Guangxi, with Sunday's Mashan Nongla climb.
Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria (QST) is the first leader of the Tour of Guangxi after dominating the closing sprint of a fast, relatively easy stage one (107km) in and around coastal Beihai, with only one Cat-3 ascent, the Guantou Hill, on each lap. The day’s racing went by without any incidents for the Movistar Team, whose members arrived in southeast China on Tuesday afternoon and rode always together at the front during this inaugural stage.
Nuno Bico (18th) was the top Blue performer at the start of a ‘sprinters’ festival’, provided that the two upcoming stages -Friday’s 157km journey towards Nanning and Saturday’s 125km circuit race- again feature mostly flat routes. The top GC contenders will keep their focus on Sunday’s decisive, finishing Mashan Nongla climb on stage four (3.3km, 6.2% average gradient).