Stage 8: Zanotti substitute training mate  Mareczko

Marco Zanotti (Monkey Town) enjoyed a  winning sprint in a reduced peloton in the absence of Jakub Mareczko (Wilier  Triestina) and Martin Laas (Delko Marseille) who didn’t overcome the first  difficulty of stage 8. It was a tight finish in Lingshui with Marco Maronese  (Bardiani CSF) and Emils Liepins (Delko Marseille) while seventh placed Jacopo  Mosca (Wilier Triestina) retained the lead with one day to go.

102  riders started stage 8 in Wuzhishan. The first category climb to start the race  with put several sprinters in difficulty in the early morning after the queen  stage. Second and third on stage 7, Benjamin Prades (Ukyo) and Marc De Maar  (Hengxiang) were among the most motivated attackers. Mosca felt the fatigue but  the Wilier Triestina team kept him focused to bring him back in the main group.  Zanotti won the KOM price at km 12 ahead of Patrick Schelling (Vorarlberg), Sam  Crome (IsoWhey Sports-Swisswellness), De Maar and Prades, which was a strong  indication of what was going to follow.

36  riders gathered at the front at km 36 when Schelling opened a solo attack. At km  55, he missed a move by Serghey Tvetcov (Jelly Belly), Andriy Vasylyuk (Kolss),  Martin Schäppi (Switzerland) and best Asian rider Liu Jianpeng (Hengxiang) but  he was prompt to rejoin the quartet before the KOM price he won at km 126. Jai  Hindley (Mitchelton-Scott) bridged the gap by himself to make it a front group  of six riders. Tvetcov rode away 30km before the end. Schelling made it across  but the duo was reined in with 6km to go.

Delko Marseille led the sprint for Liepins  but a bit of head wind made it easier for his opponents to get out of his  slipstream at the very end. Zanotti beat Maronese by a very slim margin,  clinching his first victory in two years. The Italian also moved into third  overall, just seven seconds adrift, which will make Mosca’s defense of the  yellow jersey a thrilling finale in Wanning Xinglong.

Post race quotes:

Stage 8 winner Marco Zanotti: “I came to  Hainan without racing for three months but I trained well the mountains. I’m not  a sprinter like a few years ago anymore but in a smaller peloton like today, I  can still have a say. Nowadays, there are sprinters like Mareczko who is almost  unbeatable here but on a harder course, I can still play my cards. I hadn’t won  a race for two years. I came close on several occasions but finally, I managed  to unlock myself. I think it’ll be very difficult to win GC. I expect a full  bunch sprint finish tomorrow and there are stronger sprinters than me but I have  to try because it’s a great opportunity.”

Race leader Jacopo Mosca: “Today I have to  say a big thank you to my team, especially [Luca] Raggio, [Ilya] Koshevoy and a  great [Alex] Turrin who have guided me since km 0. In the first hill, I was a  bit in trouble. I didn’t feel good. They brought me back and then, with the help  of Bardiani who was interested to set up the sprint for Maronese, we managed to  catch the breakaway that worried us a lot at some point. We’ve wonderfully  defended the yellow jersey and I hope it’ll be the same again tomorrow. We know  tomorrow’s finish. It suits Kuba [Mareczko].”

Second placed Marco Maronese: “We were  racing head to head with the rider from Delko Marseille [Emils Liepins]. In the  last few metres we saw that Zanotti managed to beat us on the right side at the  very end. However, I’m happy because it’s been a very demanding stage and I  managed to stay with the best riders. I had to give everything in the first  hill. When about fourty riders remained at the front, I asked my team-mates to  help me because I felt good. We’ve done a great job together with Wilier. I was  hoping to pay them back with a win but there’ll be another occasion  tomorrow.”

Third placed Emils Liepins: “I thought I  was going to win but there was some head wind in the last one hundred metres.  Two guys took my wheel and passed me within the last ten metres. I got a very  good lead out, I sprinted well but I launched a bit too early due to this head  wind. I’m not happy with this third place.”

Points classification leader Jakub  Mareczko: “Tomorrow, our priority will be to retain the yellow jersey with  [Jacopo] Mosca. So far, we’ve got great results as a team at the Tour of Hainan  and we hope to finish the race on a high note.”

King of the Mountain Sam Crome: “We knew it  would gonna be a hard start with the cat. 1 climb so we wanted to maximize my  lead, which we did and then the break went. Tomorrow, we’ll just have to fight  hard in the cat. 3 climb to keep the jersey.”

Most aggressive rider Patrick Schelling:  “It was a really hard stage today, probably the hardest since I came to Hainan.  I tried to go for the stage win and take some seconds bonus also, so I tried to  animate this race.”

Best Asian rider Liu Jianpeng: “I could  have just sit in the bunch for the Asian rider classification but I rode away  from the main group to try and improve my position on GC. I was glad to win the  second intermediate sprint. Since I prepared for the China games in September,  my condition is very good. It’s a shame the Hengxiang team has three important  riders less on the road now [Wang Meiyin, Ma Guangtong and Zhao Jingbiao]. We  could have created more surprises in the Tour of Hainan. Meiyin was always my  idol. I’ll try my best tomorrow to do even better than him in the overall  classification of the Tour of Hainan [fourth in 2014].”