Oscar Onley battles to 2nd on Tour of Guangxi queen stage after strong teamwork

The penultimate day of action at Tour of Guangxi saw the peloton take on the queen stage of the race, and the now traditional hill-top finish to Nongla where the GC battle was expected to come to the fore. Coming into the stage, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL had two finishers for the finale in the form of Max Poole and Oscar Onley, the latter of whom took a one second bonus on Friday’s stage. As a result, the team set out their stall early with Timo Roosen contributing to a lot of the early pace setting behind the four rider break.
Casper van Uden then took over as the race headed into the final 50 kilometres of the stage, before Patrick Eddy and Niklas Märkl brought the GC duo into position ahead of the lower slopes of the climb. With the break caught, a strong tempo continue to be set on the front as the peloton began to thin down. Knowing the steepest sections of the ascent came in the finale, the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL duo stayed in the wheels, before Onley set off in pursuit of Lafay inside the last 600 metres. Digging deep and kicking hard, he surged past Lafay but with 100 metres to go Van Eetvelt was able to come off Onley’s wheel and kick once more to the line, as the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rider finished second on the stage and with it moved into the same spot on GC.
After the finish Onley expressed: “The boys rode really well today controlling the break and positioning myself and Max into the climb. On the climb it just came down to the legs for the both of us. I’m happy to come away with the second place and pick up another consistent result after a long season.”
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Callum Ferguson added: “We knew that we had a chance to fight for the victory today with both Oscar and Max. We decided early-on to ride with Timo, who did a really good job to keep things in check, and then Casper took over after that. It was some really good commitment from those guys. With the effort that we put in, the guys then knew that they had to go all-in. On the climb Max made the call for Oscar to ride his own effort as he was cramping a bit. Oscar learned a few things from this race last year and rode a smart ascent, where he could finish it off with a really nice second place and move into the same spot on GC. We’re five seconds behind Van Eetvelt so we will see how things go tomorrow and see if we can move up one more spot.”