Paul Double continued his superb run of queen stage victories, taking a solo win atop the toughest stage of this year’s Tour of Guangxi – his first at WorldTour level.
Still riding high from his overall win at Okolo Slovenska at the end of last month, Double picked up where he left off on the penultimate day in China. Stage five of the Tour of Guangxi was the first major chance for the general classification riders after four sprint finishes.
The 29-year-old went clear with a group of three other riders on the final climb of the day to Nongla after the bunch had reeled in the day’s early escape. Double’s breakaway companions fell away but the British rider remained strong, attacking and dropping the final rider just inside the ultimate kilometre.
Double’s lead over his chasers was never secure but he dug deep and crossed the line nine seconds ahead of the next best rider. Along with the bonus seconds on the line, the win was enough to give him a 15-second lead over Victor Lafay going into the short, punchy final stage.
Paul Double
“It’s a bit surreal really. You say to your friends and your teammates ‘oh, I’m going to win tomorrow’ but with the guys that are here I’m not sure that I really expected it. To pull it off is amazing. It’s a bit of a surprise, but I’m super happy to have done it. Hopefully, we can look after the jersey tomorrow and have a good day, it would be super to bring home a WorldTour general classification win, not to mention my first WorldTour win. The boys were great and they’ve been great all week. We haven’t quite managed to get the results that we hoped for, but we’ve been there. I managed well with the heat today and I pulled it off. It’s awesome.”
Tour of Guangxi stage 5 results
1. Paul Double (Team Jayco AlUla) 03:41:38
2. Victory Lafay +09
3. Mikkel Honore +11
Tour of Guangxi general classification after stage 5
1. Paul Double (Team Jayco AlUla) 19:41:31
2. Victory Lafay +15
3. Jhonatan Narvaez +16
Photo: Sprint Cycling
