Marco Haller of Katusha surprised everyone, including himself, by beating the top sprinters in the race to win Stage Four of the 2012 Tour of Beijing. It was Haller’s first win as a professional.
The 21-year-old Austrian rider benefited from bad tactics by the other teams: several powerful sprinters’ teams tried to set up leadout trains on the wide, flat roads leading to the finish line, but all of them misjudged the pace and distance, and came up short.
Most of the sprinters were left on their own 500 meters from the finish, twice as far as they would normally sprint. After the scorching speed of the final few kilometers, the pace dropped slightly as no one could figure out quite what to do. The sprint started too far out; this led to some big names burning out before the finish line.
Lampre’s veteran sprinter Alessandro Petacchi started the sprint, heading along the left-hand barrier while Sky’s Edvald Boasson Hagen, who was looking around for teammates, took off on the right, with Elia Viviani of Liquigas on the far right. Haller wisely tucked in behind Petacchi, and used “Ale-jet” as a leadout rider.
Boasson Hagen burned too much energy too soon, and ended up in a shoving match with BMC’s Klaas Lodewyck in the second row, while RadioShack’s Daniele Bennati passed on the right and cut in front of the battling pair.
Haller waited, then saw a hole appear as Boasson Hagen and Lodewyck slowed. The young Katusha sprinter dove through the opening and exploded past Petacchi to win by four feet. Viviani showed great strength in seizing third. Lodewyck and Boasson Hagen ended up seventh and ninth for all their jostling.
“I didn’t expect to win against guys like Petacchi, Viviani and Edvald Boasson Hagen, but I wasn’t afraid of them either,” Haller told Cyclingnews.
“It was a very chaotic final kilometer, but I had some strong guys around me who managed to move me up in the finishing straight. Petacchi started his sprint early and I just came onto his wheel and when I was there, I had no big troubles to pass him. It was a great feeling to cross the line in front.”
Petacchi told Cyclingnews he lost out because he was overeager: “I was feeling good, so I went from 300 meters, but that was too early—maybe I wanted the win too much.”
Stage Four was flat for the first 120 kilometers, then ascended a trio of Cat 3 hills with a long descent to the finish line. The descent made it almost certain that the stage would end in a sprint; the power of the peloton would outmatch any breakaway.
