Home > News

Hesjedal sets up Dan Martin for Tour of Beijing queen stage win, Gilbert clings to race lead

October 13, 2014
Share on SMS

Canadians featured prominently on Monday’s queen stage of the Tour of Beijing, with Guillaume Boivin (Cannondale) in the day’s breakaway and Ryder Hesjedal attacking on Stage 4’s final climb to set up a victory for recent Il Lombardia winner Dan Martin (Ireland). Philippe Gilbert (Belgium/BMC) was able to stay with the better climbers on the mild slopes and keep his race lead over Martin by three seconds.

The four-man escape of the day managed to make it over five of the six climbs, with Boivin grabbing enough mountains points to sit second to Omega Pharma-QuickStep’s Michal Golas (Poland) in the King of the Mountains competition.

With the fugitives hauled back by the final clamber up Mentougou Miaofeng mountain, Hesjedal attacked but stayed close to the pack containing Martin, Gilbert and Orica-GreenEdge’s Colombian Esteban Chaves, who might be stepping onto his first WorldTour final podium after Tuesday’s conclusion. Martin was free to conserve energy while the others laboured to bring back the Canadian.

Hesjedal was finally lassoed with 2-km to go, and Martin launched soon after that, hanging on to beat Chaves by two seconds. The Canadian-Irish combination at Garmin has been a fruitful one, with Hesjedal working to set up Martin consistently over the past couple of seasons. Martin’s win is Garmin-Sharp’s second in a row at the Tour of Beijing after American Tyler Farrar’s sprint victory Sunday. Hesjedal moved up to 17th on GC.


2014 Tour of Beijing Stage 4
1) Dan Martin (Ireland/Garmin-Sharp) 4:12:14
2) Esteban Chaves (Colombia/Orica-GreenEdge) +0:02
3) Philippe Gilbert (Belgium/BMC) s.t.

2014 Tour of Beijing GC
1) Philippe Gilbert (Belgium/BMC) 15:19:47
2) Dan Martin (Ireland/Garmin-Sharp) +0:03
3) Esteban Chaves (Colombia/Orica-GreenEdge) +0:09
17) Ryder Hesjedal (Canada/Garmin-Sharp) +0:48

Categories: News |