Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) saved his profitable streak alive on stage 4 of the Gree-Tour of Guangxi, persevering with his clear sweep of the sprints with a decent battle to the road in Jinchengjiang.
As Magnier triumphed he shook his head in comfortable disbelief after he crossed the road first for a fourth time in a row, this time forward of Pavel Bittner (Picnic PostNL) who was additionally second on stage 2. Jordi Meeus (Crimson Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) took third.
The hilly 176.3km stage with 2,676m of elevation acquire and two class 2 and three climbs, resulted in a dash after a late assault was swept up inside 5km of the road setting Magnier up for an additional triumph. After sweeping up the dash victories from stage 1 by to stage 3 he had a 20 second lead on the Common Classification standings heading into stage 4. On the finish of the day he had bumped that as much as 26 seconds, with three-time podium placer Meeus now in second on the general.
The continued ramp up of the climbing by to the stage from Bama to Jinchengjiang hasn’t been sufficient to curtail the sprinters or Magnier’s run to this point, however that is more likely to change on Saturday because the race heads into the dramatic surroundings and karst peaks of Nongla for a summit end.
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