The 123km long Cyclo Xiwuqi race produced the same two winners as yesterday’s Speedy Xiwuqi: Mongolia’s latest young talent Saikhanbileg Enkhbaatar and China’s leading cycling lady Li Si. The latter even raised eyebrows as she crossed the finish line in fourth place overall!
Cyclo Xiwuqi started quite relaxed as a headwind in the first 20km discouraged people to attack early. The wind blew, but was less strong than a year ago. At km 12 there was a very strange situation in which half of the peloton took a wrong right turn onto the MTB track. A typical case of one guy making a mistake and the rest blindly follows. Luckily, nobody crashed and the road bikers quickly realised their error and turned back. The 79km long MTB race went on and was eventually won by Tian Zuoyang, ahead of Huo Lijun and Li Ran. Wang Lidong finished 7th – which would prove insufficient to claim the King of the Grasslands (KOG) title.
Most of the road race favourites had to chase the new front riders, though. At the first checkpoint at km 20, the top 3 of Saturday’s race was two minutes behind a first group that contained a.o. Li Si and Joelly Ines. The next long section on concrete roads cutting through the grasslans was a mixture of side wind and tailwind, and this allowed the strongest riders to make a move and ride themselves back to the front of the race. Obviously, 2 minutes, it was still quite an effort. By km 45 a larger group had formed that then quickly split up in two parts on one of the few uphill slopes on the course. Li Si stayed in the first group, and the 2 Mongolian jerseys of Enkhbaatar and Amarbat also appeared in the first positions. Halfway into the race, a quartet formed with both the Mongolians, Inner Mongolian rider Su De Er Qi (5th on Saturday already) and Li Jinlei. They would open up a gap that gradually increased as they rode on the 30km long route 99, often with headwind and sidewinds. Bad luck struck for Amarbat with 12 km to go: a flat tire destroyed his chances. Enkhbaatar had attacked just before that and looked like he was going to ride it home, but somehow the others managed to get back to him. That effort, however, cost them both a lot. With 4km to go, and the final moderately uphill slope, Li Jinlei immediately got dropped and also Su De Er Qi no longe had the legs to follow Enkhbaatar. Second victory in two days for the 16-year-old Mongolian and it would later even turn out to be enough to win the King of the Grasslands competition as well! Great getting to know this youngster, who steps into the footsteps of his countrymen Tugulduur Tuulkhangai, Myagmarsuren Baasankhuu and Sainbayar Jambaljamts – just to name a few previous winners in Xiwuqi.
Li Si was a super impressive fourth and first woman by nine minutes. Wang Yike outgunned Joelly Ines for second place in the sprint, as well as Chen Yixuan – the latter doing just enough to nick the KOG title away from Lu Fangfang, who finished 13th.
