After spending more than 200km’s in the days breakaway, Kristian Sbaragli was pipped to the line by Jun-oh Kwon (Seoul Cycling Team), just missing out on his first professional win during the 4th Tour de Korea stage today. Zhi Hui Jiang (Giant-Champion System) was the rider that had to settle for 3rd place on the stage.
The days break would consist of a total of 10 riders that would work well together throughout the 208km stage. From the 5th kilometer the break would gradually build their lead up to 4 and a half minutes where it then stayed for the majority of the stage. Only with 40km to go did the chase really start from behind, but on reaching 10km to go the gap was still at 1’30” for the escapees and they would began to attack one another for the stage honours.
Sbaragli got away with Chan Jae Jang (OCBC Singapore) with 9km to go. The duo had 10″ over their chasers but it was not enough, just as the flame rouge approached it was back together for a now, 9 man sprint. The Seoul Cycling Team used its numerical advantage of 2 riders in the break to set up the sprint for Kwon. The chasing peloton arrived some 21 seconds later.
Rider – Kristian Sbaragli
It was a hard day out in the break over a hilly course. In the final everybody in the break was trying to attack but i made sure it was me and 1 other rider that got away. Unfortunatley we were caught with 1.5km to go and in the sprint i came 2nd. I am really sad about this result, i really wanted to win.
Directeur Sportif – Kevin Campbell
We were obviously hoping for the win. Kristian gave it his best shot but came up short. He was not the obvious choice for making the days long break but he rode intelligently and kept his wits about him until the end. The Korean stage winner was 1 of a pair of team mates in the 10 man break, and they rode well as a team. The rest of our team had a relatively easy day and we will try for the stage again tomorrow and then use the remaining stages to aim for the GC.
Stage Results
Tour de Korea (Korea) – (8 June – 15 June/UCI 2.1) Team Lineup
Tomorrows Stage Profile Overview
Stage 5 (12 June)
