German team pursuit specialist beats Australian sprinters in Qinjiang Manchu Village.

15th November, 2018 – Qinjiang Manchu Village, Fujian, China: Leon Rohde, 23, who is part of the German national team mostly for track meets, imposed himself for the first time in an international road race. His victory comes the day after the win for 20-year-old Chinese mountain biker Lyu Xianjing took his maiden road race victory on a hilltop finish. Today Rohde outsprinted Stage 2 favourite Kaden Groves of Mitchelton-BikeExchange in Qinjiang Manchu Village while the other Australian young gun, Toby Orchard (Australian Cycling Academy), went down. Lyu retained the overall lead after Hengxiang Cycling Team controlled the race all the way on the shores of the South China Sea.

Stage 2 winner Leon Rohde said: “It’s perfect for me. I had a hard season. I changed team and now I prepare mostly for track cycling. I’m at the peak of my shape now in the middle of the track season. I’m super fit and my team-mates are too. I got a very strong lead out. Because the roads were wide and the wind not too strong, we decided to wait as long as we could. A train of five guys was set in front of me with 2.5km to go. It worked well. We were so explosive that nobody could hold our wheels. At 200m to go, it was my time to open my sprint. I saw somebody coming on my right side but I got it just.”
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Leon Rohde is the first German to cross the finishing line in first place on a stage at the Tour of Fuzhou since its inception in 2012. His compatriot Tino Thömel was eventually awarded the victory on Stage 3 in 2015 after the disqualification of Italy’s Mattia Gavazzi.
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20-year-old Chinese mountain biker-turned-road-racer leads Tour of Fuzhou.

14th November, 2018 – Ku Liang, Fuzhou, China: Following his impressive fifth place overall in the Tour of Hainan, Lyu Xianjing of the Hengxiang Cycling Team – directed by China’s first ever WorldTour rider, Li Fuyu – took the first road race stage victory of his career. Lyu Xianjing outsprinted Kazakhstan’s Ilya Davidenok, Hanibal Tesfay of the Eritrean national team and Australia’s Ben Dyball atop the 10km long climb to Kuliang on Stage 1 of the 2018 Tour of Fuzhou. This is only the second international road race for the 20-year-old cross-country mountain bike specialist from the Yunnan province. He leads the Tour of Fuzhou by four seconds with four stages remaining.

After the finish, stage winner Lyu Xianjing said: “I’m very happy to win here today. My hard training and the experience I gained in my previous road race [the Tour of Hainan] have paid off. I had climbed to Kuliang before so I was confident in doing something good in this stage but I had no idea about the strength of my opponents. It was hard to evaluate the attacks of the other riders. I’m still new in the game. But today’s performance doesn’t mean I’ve reached the maximum of my capacities yet. I will continue to try and do my best in the next four stages.”

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In seven editions and 23 stages of the Tour of Fuzhou contested so far, Lyu Xianjing is the second Chinese stage winner after Zhao Jingbiao, also from the Hengxiang team, who claimed Stage 3 to Jinzhou in 2016. Hong Kong’s Choi Ki Ho won the first edition overall and Stage 2 in 2012.
Statistic of the day
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