Paul Magnier powers to yet another victory at the Tour of Guangxi

It had to be him. Paul Magnier has been one of the peloton's oustanding performers in 2025 and he continued that sequence on stage 2 of the Tour of Guangxi in Jingxi. The Frenchman convincingly beat Pavel Bittner (Picnic PostNL) and Stanisław Aniołkowski (Cofidis) to claim his second win in as many days and tighten his grip on the red jersey of race leader.

Magnier extends his advantage in the general classification to 14 seconds over Max Kanter (XDS-Astana), but perhaps more tellingly, he has now amassed 16 victories in 2025 - only Tadej Pogacar (20) has collected more.  

“It’s possible but I don’t think I will try,” Magnier smiled when asked about his GC prospects here. “I’m already super happy with the two stage victories here. I will try to go for another victory, but I think I will let the GC to the GC riders.”

Even so, Magnier had to ovecome some rugged terrain on stage 3, which featured some 2,000m of climbing, and he withheld the forcing of UAE Team Emirates-XRG on the day's key ascent before winning the sprint. 

Aniołkowski's third place, meanwhile, gave 20 UCI points to Cofidis in their desperate attempt to chase down Uno-X Mobility for WorldTour status next season, but the French squad is running out of road.

Stage 3 brought the race to within touching distance of the dramatic Detian Waterfall on the Sino-Vietnamese border, but at the start in Chongzuo, the peloton was more concerned with the water cascading liberally from the skies above.

The grisly conditions caused at least one rider to crash en route to the signing-on podium, and there was a rather glum air to the bunch as it was flagged away beneath persistent rain. But even at the end of a long season, there is no let up in the WorldTour peloton, and some 50km were covered in a decidedly brisk opening hour of racing.

Kevin Geniets (Groupama-FDJ), Peter Øxenberg (Ineos), Frank Van den Broek (Picnic-PostNL), Stan Dewulf (Decathlon-AG2R), Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost) and Simon Guglielmi (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) escaped early on, but the sextet was never allowed much leeway by a swiftly moving bunch.

The stage finish was on a plateau in Jingxi, and the complexion of the race turned on the category 2 ascent with 35km to go. The break was fragmenting by that point, while UAE Team Emirates-XRG began forcing at the head of the peloton, whittling it down in size as the climb drew on. Øxenberg claimed the king of the mountains points, but he and the remaining escapees would be swept up over the top. 

Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) would attack with intent in the finale, and the Ecuadorian briefly threatened to steal a march on his GC rivals by snagging vital seconds here, but he would be caught with a shade over 2km to go.

From there, the bunch finish was inevitable, and so too was the outcome, as Magnier outpaced Pavel Bittner and Stanisław Aniołkowski to claim the spoils.