Leonardo Duque, born a Colombian but now registered as a French rider, won the last stage and the overall classification of the seventh Tour of Taihu Lake, which was the final race of his career at the age of 36.
The versatile rider from Delko Marseille-Provence-KTM outsprinted his three breakaway companions, including his direct rival on GC, Yonder Godoy (Willier-Southeast) to score the second and third victories for the French outfit in their first year as a Pro Continental team. Asbjørn Kragh Andersen won stage 4 of the Tour des Fjords for them in August.
For the second straight day, the race leader at the start of stage 7, Cameron Bayly of Attaque Gusto crashed in the last twenty kilometres while he was part of the leading trio with Duque and Godoy.
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“It’s very good to finish my career with a stage and GC win,” Duque said. “I didn’t think I’d do it when I started racing this morning. I believed the leader was going to stay with us. He had a great form but we also have a fair bit of experience with so many years of racing behind. Bayly deserved to win but after a year of racing at the highest level, we, from the Pro Continental teams, have some extra power. It counts. We were only four riders from Marseille in this race [fifth man Frederik Strand Galta pulled out due to sickness after the prologue] but we won GC, best young rider classification [with Lucas De Rossi] and we aren’t too bad in the teams classification either.”
“I was following all the moves and all the guys I needed to,” a hugely disappointed Bayly explained. “I made a mistake on the descent and crashed. A corner caught me out by surprise. I thought I was holding up, I just couldn’t. I went off the road into a tree. I’m embarrassed. I’m normally proud of my bike handling. I just got caught out and that was it. I was done. Before that, I did everything I needed to do. There were only three of us up the road and I was there with the GC guys. Just one silly mistake and the race is all over.”
Duque and Godoy forged on. They were only two seconds apart on GC, Duque being second with an advantage of two seconds over the other South American since he took a four-second bonus through his third place on stage 4.
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