Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) won stage 8 at Tour of Hainan as he extended his overall lead.
On Saturday, the 24-year-old Kazakhstan rider and 2012 under-23 UCI world road race champion overcame four categorised climbs and added stage winner to his most recent list of accomplishments after outsprinting stage 1 winner and previous race leader Rafael Andriato (Wilier Triestina-Southeast) on stage 8 (165.8km) in Qiongzhong, China. Italian Andrea Pasqualon (Team Roth) finished third for his second podium of the race.
“On the last KOM, I wanted to attack,” explained Lutsenko following his third victory of the season, which also included a Paris-Nice stage win in March. “I was joined by a small group that I wanted to take to the finish, but a chase group caught us and we all went to the line together.
“I want to thank my teammates, because in the last kilometre I had two riders (Dmitriy Gruzdev and Daniil Fominykh) leading me out and giving me big support, otherwise I would have been racing a lot of good sprinters and it would have been very difficult. This win is because of my team.”
Tour of Hainan 2016 – stage 8 results:
| 1 | Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) | 4:13:50 |
| 2 | Rafael Andriato (Wilier – Southeast) | ,, |
| 3 | Andrea Pasqualon (Roth) | ,, |
| 4 | Simone Ponzi (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) | ,, |
| 5 | Leonardo Duque (Delko Marseille) | ,, |
| 6 | Mario Costa (Lampre – Merida) | ,, |
| 7 | Giuseppe Fonzi (Wilier – Southeast) | ,, |
| 8 | Evgeny Zotov (Russia) | ,, |
| 9 | Cristian Raileanu (Wilier – Southeast) | ,, |
| 10 | Patrick Schelling (Vorarlberg) | ,, |
General classification after stage 8:
| 1 | Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) | 33:19:27 |
| 2 | Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida) | +17” |
| 3 | Matej Mohoric (Lampre-Merida) | +44” |
| 4 | Patrick Schelling (Vorarlberg) | +57” |
| 5 | Mauricio Ortega (RTS – Monton) | ,, |
| 6 | Ilya Davidenok (RTS – Monton) | +1’10” |
| 7 | Alex Diniz (Funvic – Carrefour) | +1’12” |
| 8 | Mohammad Gharehbaghi (Hy Sport – Look) | +1’03” |
| 9 | Daniel Dominguez (Hy Sport – Look) | ,, |
| 10 | Cristian Raileanu (Wilier – Southeast) | ,, |
