Biesterbos surprises Magnier and Kooij on Tour of Guangxi stage 2

Frits Biesterbos (Team Picnic-PostNL) won stage 2 of the Tour of Guangxi in Jingxi, taking the first professional victory of his career from a bunch sprint after the 179km run from Chongzuo.

Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) was second ahead of Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), with Max Kanter and Robin Froidevaux completing the top five on the same time. Magnier retains the race lead.

It is Picnic PostNL’s third win of the season, after Casper van Uden won a stage of the Tour of Turkey in April and Pavel Bittner claimed Paris-Chauny in September.

There was a spate of early attacks, with Jasha Sütterlin, Baptiste Veistroffer, Robbe Dhondt, Julius Johansen, Su Haoyu and Liu Chenglu among those going clear in the opening kilometres before being brought back.

The move that stuck took shape with around 113km remaining, as Dries De Bondt (Team Jayco AlUla), Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Martin Tjøtta (Uno-X Mobility) and Liu Chenglu (China) forged clear. 

Their advantage never grew beyond 40 seconds, and they were swept up approaching the final 30km. Jhonatan Narváez (UAE) and Javier Romo (Movistar) countered, and Narváez took the intermediate sprint at Huadong Town ahead of Pau Miquel (Bahrain Victorious) and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5).

Kévin Vauquelin and Veistroffer both attacked in the finale but their moves were snuffed out, with Soudal Quick-Step, Decathlon CMA CGM, Visma, Picnic PostNL and Groupama-FDJ United all taking turns to set up the bunch finish.

Magnier opened the sprint from third wheel with 300 metres to go, but Biesterbos came past and held on for a surprise triumph.