Latvian cyclist wins last stage of Tour of Quanzhou Bay

FUZHOU, China, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Deins Kabepejs from Latvian Rietumu Banka-Riga team won the last stage of Tour of Quanzhou Bay at 2 hours 2 minutes and 12 seconds while all the jersey owners secured the honor on Monday.

The last stage of the three-day tour, with two sprints at 38.9kms and 62.9kms, started from Nan'an mountain scenic spot to Quanzhou Maritime Silkroad Art Park on Monday, through the total distance of 90.7kms.

The final stage is a level race with 3 laps' circuit ride in the middle and each lap is about 12kms. Many riders attempted to breakthroughs but the peloton could always chase up. Kabepejs, 1.97 meters tall, took the tiny lead before the finishing line.

Harry Tanfield, the blue jersey owner of the first stage, followed the second and Tino Thomel from German Bike Aid team ranked the third. Chen Zhiwen from Chinese Giant cycling team finished the fourth, a few more inches to step on the stage podiums.

All the jersey owners secured the honor after the final easy ride. Max topped the overall individuals and wore his leader's blue jersey. His teammate Rory Townsend kept the green jersey as the best sprinter for all the three stages.

Dawit Yamane from Eritrea Sembel cycling team kept polka dot jersey as the best climber and his team won the best result of team general classification. Lau Wan Yau Vincent of Hong Kong, China earned the red jersey as the best Chinese rider.

The 21-year-old Max told Xinhua it was his first tour in China and he would come back again. "It's been good to see different part of Quanzhou City, especially the second day in the mountain, it's really different experience."

"The sceneries are spectacular. We could look over the city on the top of the mountain at the finish yesterday. Not very often our team gets to do race like that," Rory added, "Today's as hot as yesterday and we've got used to the heat. The circuit today is nice and I'd love to race on the circuit."

"I was more nervous about today than yesterday. Today there is a lot more to control and a lot more that could go so wrong," said the blue jersey owner, "in a way, we got everything under control."

Initiated in 2016, the three-stage race with 120,000 US dollars prize is currently registered as a level 2.2 race of the International Cycling Union (UCI), covering the total distance of 287.6kms. Enditem