NTN presents 2019 ツアー・オブ・ジャパン

RACE: NTN presents 2019 Tour of Japan Stage 2 KYOTO Stage 

DATE: 2019.MAY.20. (MONDAY)

Weather: Cloudy

Tempreture: 22℃

Number of Spectators: 47,000

The second stage of 2019 Tour of Japan started the ceremonial ride at Fugenji Fureai no Eki (shop) in Kyotanabe city, Kyoto and went through Kyotanabe campus of Doshisha University on Monday, 20th May.  The actual race course is 105 km in total, 6 laps of 16.8 km per lap, started from Fugenji Elementary School and finished at Keihanna Plaza in Seika town, Kyoto. 

After the actual start, several attacks were seen, and in the end of the first lap, Shotaro IRIBE (SHIMANO RACING TEAM), Daiki YASUHARA (MATRIX POWERTAG), Philippo ZACCANTI (NIPPO – VINI FANTINI – FAIZANé) and 4 other riders made an attack from the peloton, formed a breakaway and crossed the finish line of the first lap.  The time gap to the front group was 1 minute and 20 seconds, when the peloton got into the second lap.

After two riders were dropped from the breakaway, instead, Artem OVECHKIN (TERENGGANU INC. TSG CYCLING TEAM) came up to the breakaway.  The breakaway was formed by 6 riders and the time gap from the peloton was kept more than 1 minute until the 5th lap.

The sprint point has been set at the 2nd lap and 4th lap at the finish line.  For the sprint point, the first place rider is given 5 UCI points, 3 UCI points for the second place and 1 UCI point for the third place.

The King of Mountain’s classification (KOM) has been set at the 3rd lap (43.4km) and 5th lap (77km).  As well as the sprint point, 5 UCI points for the first place, 3 UCI points for the second place and 1 UCI point for the third place were given.

In the two laps to go, Artem OVECHKIN was dropped from the 6-rider breakaway and Daiki YASUHARA was also dropped from the front group and only two riders, Shotaro IRIBE and Phillipo ZACCANTI made an attack.  Ayden TOOVEY caught up to the breakaway.  Those three riders tried to escape from the peloton with 50 seconds time gap.

When the survival battle of three riders in the break was going on, the peloton speeded up to catch the breakaway.

When the last lap began with 1 minute 15 seconds time gap, it looked like no strategy in each team and all riders just pedaled with full gas.  Even the gap to the break was getting shorter, when the peloton was in the last corner of the course with only 15 seconds time gap, three riders in the front made it to pull away from the peloton with a spurt and to finish the race.  The winner of the 2nd stage goes to Ayden TOOVEY (TEAM BRIDGELANE), followed by Shotaro IRIBE (SHIMANO RACING TEAM) with the same time as Ayden’s and Philippo ZACCANTI (NIPPO – VINI FANTINI - FAIZANé) with two seconds behind.  The peloton finished just 9 seconds behind.