ASTANA – Kazakh rider Alexey Lutsenko from the Astana Pro Team won the cycling race Tour of Hainan, which was held in the namesake province of China Oct. 22-30.
Lutsenko took the lead in the overall standings after the sixth stage and was able to hold it through the ninth and final stage. Second in the general classification with a delay of 17 seconds was Przemysław Niemiec of Lampre-Merida, and third was his teammate Slovenian Matej Mohoric.
Also Lutsenko, who recently won the third consecutive Tour of Almaty, won in the category Best Asian Rider.
“I can say that without my team, I would not have achieved this victory. The guys worked perfectly the whole race, always rode ahead, catching up detachments, protected our lead, so it is a victory of our team,” Lutsenko said after the race.
Along with the victory in the general classification, Astana Pro Team won victories in two stages of the race. Thus, the cycling club finished the season with a good victory in China.
Tour of Hainan has been held since 2006. Kazakh riders Valentin Iglinskiy won in 2010 and 2011 and Dmitriy Gruzdev won in 2012.
