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Lesser known races thread 2021

Page 16 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Very short stage in Vietnam yesterday - 94km only - over bumpy terrain, and that led to an attacking race, with the ever-combative Huỳnh Thanh Tùng leading off proceedings as soon as they left the neutral zone. The four-man move he initiated gained a minute while BikeLife were keener to prevent any Lộc Trời, Vinama or DDT riders escape than they were to control the move featuring mainly unthreatening riders, other than Huỳnh. The Quân Khu 7 leader accumulated the bonus seconds, but despite a maximum advantage of 2 minutes, their break was doomed; the đèo Quán Cau pass crested just 10km from home, and at the start of the ascent the Lộc Trời team initiated a co-ordinated move, with Trịnh Đức Tâm, Nguyễn Huỳnh Đăng Khoa and Tăng Quý Trọng all attacking in unison. They were secondary contenders and were marked by Lê Hải Đăng (contesting the U23 jersey) and Nguyễn Quốc Bảo from DDT, Nguyễn Tuấn Vũ from Vinama, and Nguyễn Phạm Quốc Khang and Trần Lê Minh Tuấn from BikeLife. Quân Khu 7, who have been very active this year after a disappointing race in the unexpected global spotlight last year, also contributed two riders, Nguyễn Trúc Xinh and Hà Văn Sơn, plus the group collected Huỳnh Thanh Tùng during the ascent and he was able to stay with the group as they pressed on. A game of cat and mouse then began, as Nguyễn Tuấn Vũ is 3rd overall, but was isolated in the group; the BikeLife riders in the head of the field were trying to sabotage the escape while the Lộc Trời team was working as hard as possible on the front to gain their own time in the teams classification, but without giving Vinama a chauffeur ride to the maillot jaune. Trịnh Đức Tâm made their efforts worth it, taking the win for the An Giang-based team, while for his hard work all day Huỳnh Thanh Tùng was compensated with a second consecutive runner-up spot. The péloton came in 17 seconds behind, so this moves Nguyễn Tuấn Vũ up from 3rd overall to 2nd and reduces his deficit to just 20 seconds, while Nguyễn Phạm Quốc Khang moves up to 5th, leapfrogging his teammate Nguyễn Hoàng Sang and meaning that Nguyễn Tấn Hoài, the best-placed rider outside of the biggest two teams, is 7th overall. It seems like the work done to manufacture sprints and bonuses early on might be coming back to haunt them, as BikeLife are increasingly happy to allow unthreatening breakaways to go and Domesco are not as able to assert dominance on the front of the bunch as they were last week.


More success for Medellín in Colombia, as Robinson Chapalud won stage 7, which was basically the traditional Alto de Letras stage but run in reverse, meaning taking the steeper side of the climb, but the west face is only 1/3 the length of the eastern side of the climb and left an 80km descent into Mariquita to finish. As a result for the most part the major contenders regrouped and came in together, mostly at around 3 minutes down along with some stragglers from the break. Óscar Sevilla, race leader Juan Pablo Suárez, Aristóbulo Cala, Yecid Pira, Aldemar Reyes and José Tito Hernández were all in the same group, but Freddy Montaña lost 20 seconds, noteworthily. It doesn't cost him a GC spot but moves him to nearly 3 minutes adrift.
 
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Stage 17 in Vietnam as we start the head for home, and a stage which was about as horribly designed as you could get, with climbs in the first half and then a very easy, flat second half. Javier Sardá Pérez made a strikeout on the Đèo Cả climb early on, collecting some GPM points, but was shadowed by Nguyễn Phạm Quốc Khang playing monitor and trying to protect the polka dots, the move came to little, and after I was critical and suggested they may be tiring, the Domesco team decided to prove me wrong and manage things to bring the stage to a sprint once more today. However, this time Nguyễn Tấn Hoài did not have the legs to deliver, being defeated by Lê Nguyệt Minh. With yesterday's winner Trịnh Đức Tâm coming in 3rd, there is now a competition for the blue points jersey again, which had been fairly comfortably in the hands of Nguyễn Tấn Hoài before yesterday. Now, the two other podium riders today remain just 13 points back, and simultaneously the bonus seconds mean Tấn Hoài is 53 seconds back, meaning his strategy of van Looying the race on bonus seconds is in a bad way, with the mountain stage to Đà Lạt unlikely to give him a shot at bonus seconds without losing time to one of the riders in front of him.

 
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With tomorrow being the decisive mountain stage of the HTV Cup you'd have been forgiven for expecting a somewhat tame spectacle on stage 18 into Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm, but the Vinama-TPHCM team were keenly interested in making this a more interesting one and colluded with local colleagues NewGroup, the two teams launching no fewer than four of their riders up the road 10km into the stage, including Nguyễn Minh Việt who is not too far down on the GC and required chasing. This brought white jersey contender Lê Hải Đăng up the road too, and the group swiftly built an advantage of two minutes, trying to force BikeLife to work on the front and exhaust their domestiques ahead of tomorrow. Phan Tuấn Vũ escaped solo on the đèo Vĩnh Hy climb (or rather climbs plural, since it's essentially the culmination of a lot of ups and downs along the coastal road that aren't necessarily individually categorisation-worthy but amount to almost 20km of relentless up and down), while interestingly behind, Javier Sardá attacked on the climb, drawing maillot jaune Loïc Désriac with him, and the two extranjeros made contact with the remains of the escape, before DDT went to work to pull them back.

After the neutralisation of the main escape group seeing as two of the biggest GC favourites were suddenly in it (one of them with multiple teammates), Vinama launched a second move with two of their riders, which also saw two riders from Quân Khu 7 on the move. Now the military team are stagehunting, they worked cohesively with Vinama to keep the new group of 9 away until the finish, but this cost them at the end as Nguyễn Huỳnh Đăng Khoa, who had been hiding within the group, took the stage for Lộc Trời as the race becomes a hunt for stages and the minds of the big teams will turn towards tomorrow's big mountain stage with the two most severe climbs of the race.


I haven't had the chance to watch through the MTF from the Vuelta a Colombia just yet, but we have a very exciting finale on our hands. Darwin Atapuma won the stage for CTA but is not a major GC threat - he is 8th and 6 minutes down despite the win - however the real key was the battle behind between Ángel Alexander Gil (despite the commentators calling him Ángel in the La Línea stage, it appears he prefers to go by Alex, so I shall be calling him that going forward). Gil has never been a truly eye-catching prospect and has reached age 28, but he has simultaneously been pretty consistent, finishing in the mid-teens in the Tour Colombia a couple of times and he was 6th on GC last year, albeit taking the lead early on and then following the "fall back as slowly as possible" method. José Tito Hernández, on the other hand, is almost always visible, riding for the oft-dominant Medellín team and being very aggressive; he won an interesting stage of last year's race in Belálcazar, on the same finish as was seen in this race in the stage Aldemar Reyes won. And at 26, he's still young enough to have some kind of upward progression. He won the Clásico RCN last season as well, and though Gil was able to drop him decisively on the Alto del Vino, Juan Pablo Suárez imploding and losing five minutes means that Hernández acquires the yellow jersey with a margin of just one single, solitary second over Alex Gil, setting up a pretty dramatic final stage on the punchy circuit around Bogotá. You would argue that on paper this should suit Hernández more - he has a good punchy finish so should be adept at making moves on this kind of circuit, plus riding for Medellín gives him a stronger squad of helpers at his disposal - at the same time, though, Orgullo Paísa, Gil's team, placed 4 riders in the top 11 on the Alto del Vino and with Óscar Sevilla dropping, Hernández had only Chalapud for company for a long time. Much of the remainder of the Medellín team came in in the bus, however, so may be more fresh for today's stage as riders like Robigzon Oyola and Fabio Duarte are capable of much more, as we know.

Aristóbulo Cala came in in 4th and moves up to 3rd on the GC, with Juan Pablo Suárez and Yecid Pira dropping down - the latter coming in wiith Suárez 5 minutes down, having been alone throughout. Freddy Montaña climbed off and I suspect he must therefore have crashed out because though his form was dropping off, I wouldn't have expected that much of a total capitulation.
 
Vuelta a Colombia just finished. I watched this race after 11 years of not watching it. Last time I watched the race was when Sergio Henao won it. I remember being very excited about him back then.
The reason I watched it this year, wasn't only because of the broadcast improvement, but because of a youngster called Yesid Pira. He won the hard stage to La Linea and all of a sudden we were in the hype train again with a new rider. He showed some weakness 4 days later when he conceded 5 minutes. However it was quite nice to see a youngster having a chance at winning this race. That doesn't happen very often to my dislike. It is usually old riders like riders like Sevilla, Felix Cardenas, Rujano, Castelblanco, Botero, Buenahora winning this race. For whatever reason it is just not right to show most prestigious race in Colombia without the best riders of the country with no youngsters having a chance. Last year was another youngster named Diego Camargo who is in EF who actually won it. We hope that this race continues giving chances to the youngsters. I think is a good sign. I don't have anything against the old guys but having young riders again in combination with the veterans is a good thing for a race.

FWIW if you want to see some of it the stages are available in YouTube. Check stages 4, 6 and 8.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqqXpn0IOtk

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK1Ljrkj5rc

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6viWX2COI


There are other broadcasts but I am not sure about the quality of it. This one is narrated by Hector Urrego, the same person who used to comment on the Tour de France's of the 80's. Yes, the same one. He knows quite a bit and he has a portal called Mundo Ciclistico (https://www.revistamundociclistico.com/). When Bernal won the Your de France he wanted him to present his title in Colombia. Very respected fellow.

Just as a last comment, Yesid Pira is a delivery messenger on his bike every day from working hours. I imagine that is from 8 AM to 5PM. He could only train from 4 to 7 AM. Very typical story for many Colombians. His sponsorship for this race came from the city of La Vega. LOL. I saw his bike and it really looked like this guy had money only to pay for the registration. We'll see what happens with him. He is 21 years old.
 
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After a third rest day, we are headed for home in the HTV Cup. The hosts are now in facemasks, and things are getting serious, with the queen stage from Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm to Đà Lạt, over two major mountain passes, including đèo Ngoạn Mục, the biggest and longest climb of the race, and then the summit of the traditional đèo Prenn just 2km from home. It's more a kind of Jaizkibel/Arrate kind of sized ascent, but it's the traditional key climb here with the south approach to Đà Lạt being iconic to the race and having the same kind of tradition to the race as, say, Cerro El Cristo in the Vuelta al Tachirá or Senhora da Graça in the Volta a Portugal - there may be tougher climbs available, but this one is the one. It has a history of being won by moonlighters and extranjeros, including Gong Hyo-Suk, Mirsamad Pourseyedi and two-time defending champion Javier Sardá Pérez, who was going to be keen to try to dethrone fellow import Loïc Désriac as this would be the final stage where he could use his climbing strength to his advantage.

A large break mainly made up of riders on smaller teams and out of contention for the GC quickly escaped, but 18km at 5% is a hefty obstacle at this level, and in a scene where flat and hilly races predominate so epic mountains are only occaionally seen. This is why the European imports - especially Sardá who grew up in Cantabrian cycling - and those on teams like BikeLife that sometimes get some overseas racing tend to be more successful on these stages. Vinama, in their older guise, won the race on this stage last year, holding the yellow jersey already but with a vulnerable rider who wasn't as strong a climber, so Sardá used this stage to make his decisive move. Nguyễn Trường Tài and Nguyễn Dương Hồ Vũ made moves to force chasing from BikeLife before, late on the đèo Ngoạn Mục ascent, Sardá attacked, winniing the summit and bringing GPM leader Nguyễn Phạm Quốc Khang out with him; the latter defended his lead but knew he was likely to lose the jersey on the last climb of the day; he needed realistically to beat Sardá here to win the jersey. Instead we had a very reduced péloton on the plateau leading towards the Prenn climb, and Nguyễn Trúc Xinh of NewGroup was able to escape. BikeLife were keen for him to go since he was some 3 minutes down on GC, sitting up and letting him accumulate a lead to take bonus seconds out of the equation on the final ascent. Lộc Trời then made a concerted move with three riders and brought forward an escape of eight including, most notably, Vinama's Nguyễn Minh Việt, only 1'26 down.

Despite the hard work of the escapees, though, they were kept on a leash by the BikeLife troops, and when they came to start đèo Prenn their advantage was too slender to hold. The climb splintered the front group, and then attacks from Javier Sardá Pérez isolated maillot jaune Désriac and brought the overseas pair to the front too. A group of 5 was formed - Sardá, Désriac, Nguyễn Hoàng Giang (the strongest of the Lộc Trời riders), Phạm Quốc Cường for DDT, and Võ Thanh An of the much smaller Vinh Long team - which Sardá tried repeatedly to force his way out of, at exactly the same spot as he won the race from in 2020. Unlike last year, however, Désriac was ironman and could not be broken despite the Spaniard's best efforts; in the end he even dropped the rest of the quintet just before the summit of the climb, taking first over the GPM and then opening up some daylight ahead of Sardá, who secured the GPM, but could not enlist the collaboration he needed to bring back the Frenchman, who took the stage win and more than likely the GC win with it. The remains of the quintet came in 14 seconds back, Nguyễn Thang and Nguyễn Hoàng Sàng came in at 46", and the rest of the splintered lead group came in at +1'29 and +1'40. Nguyễn Tấn Hoài, 2nd last year, dropped over two and a half minutes and will have to settle for the points jersey, falling to 11th overall.

Désriac now leads by 57" from Sardá, with BikeLife teammate Nguyễn Hoàng Sàng 3rd at +1'43. DDT's hopes have to rest on Phạm Quốc Cường, but with so many other BikeLife and Vinama riders losing time after working for their leaders, he has moved up into a Zubeldia-tastic 4th on GC at +2'32" ahead of the Vinama duo of Nguyễn Tuấn Vũ and Nguyễn Thang in 5th and 6th respectively.

 
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The last circuit stage of the HTV Cup today, as stage 20 was, as tradition dictates, the calm after the storm of the queen stage. Every year after the Đà Lạt mountain stage, there is a high altitude short circuit race on a 5,1km circuit around the Hồ Xuân Hương lake, named after a late Lê dynasty female poet whose works in Nôm (a system for adapting Chinese characters for Vietnamese language speech) helped elevate the status of Vietnamese as a literary language and left her a legacy as one of the country's most important writers. This allows the riders to take in a comparatively calm day after the exertions of yesterday, and also enables HTV to fill their broadcast with scenic images of Vietnam's most famous hill station.

They didn't get long to do it, though, as despite the stage being here ostensibly to help the riders to recover from yesterday's queen stage, they certainly weren't hanging around, covering the course at a frenetic 48,3km/h. As the crit stages are a popular means for some of the lower-ranked riders to try to get an escape in, riders who sat in the autobus yesterday or have been eliminated from the GC (as a non-UCI race, the HTV Cup allows riders who miss the time limit to stay in the race, but they are ineligible for any of the classifications) were continually attacking in the hopes that the GC favourites would sit up as we saw in stages 11, 13 and 15. However, the successes of Trịnh Đức Tâm in those stages has meant he's a bit of a threat to the points jersey, so Nguyễn Tấn Hoài's men were keen to ensure a sprint and protect their leader, and so Domesco and BikeLife helped control things, especially when people like Sardá decided to test them out. With 7km remaining Nguyễn Trúc Xinh tried to succeed where yesterday he failed, but while he was a lot closer to succeeding here on the flat circuit than when đèo Prenn loomed ahead, he was pulled back with a kilometre to go and Nguyễn Tấn Hoài won the sprint to take his fourth stage win of the race, ahead of his nearest blue jersey rivals Lê Nguyệt Minh and Trịnh Đức Tâm.

Tomorrow's stage to Bảo Lộc is quite hilly - I don't think there's a difficult enough obstacle close enough to the finish to make up the almost a minute required by Sardá let alone anybody else's time gaps on Loïc Désriac, but it will have to be tomorrow that any action takes place, as stage 22 is a very fast and flat drop from the highlands to the Mekong Delta for the traditional finish iin the race's home.

 
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Vuelta Asturias starts today, a shame it isn't televised as the route is pretty good and the field is at least halfway decent with Quintana, Latour, Zakarin and Tour of Turkey winner José Manuel Díaz.

Full startlist

Stage 1
etapa-1-perfil.jpg


Final climbs:
La Cabaña (first 3.2k only)
Picu+Polio.gif


Fresneo
Alto+del+Couxial+Norte.gif


Carabanzo
Carabanzo+Norte.gif


Stage 2
etapa-2-perfil.jpg


Final climb:
Acebo (from a different side than usual - click the image for a better resolution)


Stage 3
etapa-3-perfil.jpg


Final climbs:
El Violeo
Violeo.png


Alto del Naranco (first 5.5k only)
altodelnarancoporoviedoperfil.jpg


Stage 1 has started with a two-man breakaway up the road.
 
We're on the home stretch in Vietnam, with the ceremonial traditional finish on April 30th ready in sight, when the penultimate stage from Đà Lạt to Bảo Lộc set off yesterday morning on a shortened (98km instead of the originally planned 110km) route. This meant there were a couple of climbs but it would be largely a downhill route, so a fast stage was expected, as well as it being the last chance to take any chance - no matter how remote - to challenge Loïc Désriac's GC lead. Javier Sardá had an exploratory attack over the summit of đèo Phú Hiệp and gained a few seconds, but with it being just a cat.4 climb and 48km from the finish, it was more a move about securing the polka dots than a realistic attempt to dethrone the Frenchman as BikeLife quickly set their troops to work and neutralised the Cantabrian. 620 Châu Thới-Vĩnh Long were the best placed team without a stage win, and they worked hard to rectify that, with first team leader Võ Thanh An attacking, and then when he was caught just after the last intermediate sprint (probably a misjudgement by DDT), they got a man into a counter attack move of four, then when that was neutralised, Nguyễn Minh Thiện setting off for home with 15km remaining. His move was initially greeted with little reaction, but when his lead topped out at 30 seconds a reaction was provoked. The largely downhill nature of the stage meant another express pace - over 47km/h - and the Vĩnh Long rider was aided in his quest to stay away by a disorganised chase behind, with lots of counterattacks, both from those trying to manoeuvre their position in the GC, Vinama riders trying to overcome the 36" they needed to win the Teams Classification, and stagehunters looking to escape if the pace was raised such to bring back Nguyễn Minh Thiện. Sadly for them, however, it wasn't; repeated changes of pace made it hard for the péloton to keep tempo, while, though he was fading, the lone fugitive was able to keep going at his own speed, and held on through the streets of Bảo Lộc by just the skin of his teeth, coming in 2 seconds ahead of the heavily reduced péloton, which was led home by Javier Sardá who took 6 seconds out of his deficit, but nothing like enough to make a difference overall.


This set up the final 163km run from Bảo Lộc into the race's home in Hồ Chí Minh City, to finish in front of the Independence Palace as per tradition. Last year they had the traditional finish, but they couldn't hold it on April 30th, a symbolic date to match that on which the North Vietnamese tanks arrived at the palace gates to end the Vietnam War and reunite the country. Unlike most races with traditional finishes, however, there is no circuit here like on the Champs Elysées, and in fact because of the ceremonial nature of the ride into town, it's actually usually settled by baroudeurs.

That was the case today as well, with the early descent down into the Mekong Delta and then consecutive attempts by Vinama and Lộc Trời to try to manoeuvre some GC action with a strong break driving the pace once more up above 45km/h, before the big sprinters contested the final intermediate sprint, even though Nguyễn Tấn Hoài had built up a virtually unassailable lead in the classification. After this, it was the turn of the non-GC teams to try to generate some action, and the ever-combative Quân Khu 7 team (they won the team combativity prize, which is a thing in Vietnam) sent Phạm Lê Xuân Lộc up the road, first as part of a group, and then with 50km remaining, solo. He was pulled back with 10km remaining, after which Vinama sent Trần Thanh Điền and Nguyễn Minh Việt to attack together - the latter being well placed on GC as well as BikeLife's Teams lead being tenuous meant that they worked hard to bring this move back. Then, with 1km remaining, stage 21's winner Nguyễn Minh Thiện attacked while the sprinters were hesitating over setting up their leadouts. It has taken the Vĩnh Long team 21 stages to get that winning feeling, but thanks to Nguyễn Minh Thiện they pick up consecutive stages to finish the race on a high note, as he stayed away just a few seconds ahead of the bunch, which was led in by a straggling counter-attack fronted by Nguyễn Hữu Thành of the Quân Doi team, taking the bonus seconds out of the mix and meaning the final GC would be unchanged.


Final GC
1 Loïc Désriac (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) 51'28'19,82
2 Javier Sardá Pérez (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +51"
3 Nguyễn Hoàng Sàng (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) +1'43"
4 Phạm Quốc Cường (Domesco Đồng Tháp) +2'37"
5 Nguyễn Tuấn Vũ (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +2'41"
6 Nguyễn Thắng (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +2'58"
7 Nguyễn Hướng (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) +2'59"
8 Nguyễn Phạm Quốc Khang (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) +3'04"
9 Nguyễn Minh Việt (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +3'16"
10 Nguyễn Tấn Hoài (Domesco Đồng Tháp) +3'24"
 
We're on the home stretch in Vietnam, with the ceremonial traditional finish on April 30th ready in sight, when the penultimate stage from Đà Lạt to Bảo Lộc set off yesterday morning on a shortened (98km instead of the originally planned 110km) route. This meant there were a couple of climbs but it would be largely a downhill route, so a fast stage was expected, as well as it being the last chance to take any chance - no matter how remote - to challenge Loïc Désriac's GC lead. Javier Sardá had an exploratory attack over the summit of đèo Phú Hiệp and gained a few seconds, but with it being just a cat.4 climb and 48km from the finish, it was more a move about securing the polka dots than a realistic attempt to dethrone the Frenchman as BikeLife quickly set their troops to work and neutralised the Cantabrian. 620 Châu Thới-Vĩnh Long were the best placed team without a stage win, and they worked hard to rectify that, with first team leader Võ Thanh An attacking, and then when he was caught just after the last intermediate sprint (probably a misjudgement by DDT), they got a man into a counter attack move of four, then when that was neutralised, Nguyễn Minh Thiện setting off for home with 15km remaining. His move was initially greeted with little reaction, but when his lead topped out at 30 seconds a reaction was provoked. The largely downhill nature of the stage meant another express pace - over 47km/h - and the Vĩnh Long rider was aided in his quest to stay away by a disorganised chase behind, with lots of counterattacks, both from those trying to manoeuvre their position in the GC, Vinama riders trying to overcome the 36" they needed to win the Teams Classification, and stagehunters looking to escape if the pace was raised such to bring back Nguyễn Minh Thiện. Sadly for them, however, it wasn't; repeated changes of pace made it hard for the péloton to keep tempo, while, though he was fading, the lone fugitive was able to keep going at his own speed, and held on through the streets of Bảo Lộc by just the skin of his teeth, coming in 2 seconds ahead of the heavily reduced péloton, which was led home by Javier Sardá who took 6 seconds out of his deficit, but nothing like enough to make a difference overall.


This set up the final 163km run from Bảo Lộc into the race's home in Hồ Chí Minh City, to finish in front of the Independence Palace as per tradition. Last year they had the traditional finish, but they couldn't hold it on April 30th, a symbolic date to match that on which the North Vietnamese tanks arrived at the palace gates to end the Vietnam War and reunite the country. Unlike most races with traditional finishes, however, there is no circuit here like on the Champs Elysées, and in fact because of the ceremonial nature of the ride into town, it's actually usually settled by baroudeurs.

That was the case today as well, with the early descent down into the Mekong Delta and then consecutive attempts by Vinama and Lộc Trời to try to manoeuvre some GC action with a strong break driving the pace once more up above 45km/h, before the big sprinters contested the final intermediate sprint, even though Nguyễn Tấn Hoài had built up a virtually unassailable lead in the classification. After this, it was the turn of the non-GC teams to try to generate some action, and the ever-combative Quân Khu 7 team (they won the team combativity prize, which is a thing in Vietnam) sent Phạm Lê Xuân Lộc up the road, first as part of a group, and then with 50km remaining, solo. He was pulled back with 10km remaining, after which Vinama sent Trần Thanh Điền and Nguyễn Minh Việt to attack together - the latter being well placed on GC as well as BikeLife's Teams lead being tenuous meant that they worked hard to bring this move back. Then, with 1km remaining, stage 21's winner Nguyễn Minh Thiện attacked while the sprinters were hesitating over setting up their leadouts. It has taken the Vĩnh Long team 21 stages to get that winning feeling, but thanks to Nguyễn Minh Thiện they pick up consecutive stages to finish the race on a high note, as he stayed away just a few seconds ahead of the bunch, which was led in by a straggling counter-attack fronted by Nguyễn Hữu Thành of the Quân Doi team, taking the bonus seconds out of the mix and meaning the final GC would be unchanged.


Final GC
1 Loïc Désriac (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) 51'28'19,82
2 Javier Sardá Pérez (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +51"
3 Nguyễn Hoàng Sàng (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) +1'43"
4 Phạm Quốc Cường (Domesco Đồng Tháp) +2'37"
5 Nguyễn Tuấn Vũ (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +2'41"
6 Nguyễn Thắng (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +2'58"
7 Nguyễn Hướng (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) +2'59"
8 Nguyễn Phạm Quốc Khang (BikeLife-Đồng Nai) +3'04"
9 Nguyễn Minh Việt (Vinama-TP Hồ Chí Minh) +3'16"
10 Nguyễn Tấn Hoài (Domesco Đồng Tháp) +3'24"
7 Nguyens in Top 10.
 
7 Nguyens in Top 10.
Considering how common the name is in Vietnam, it's actually quite impressive that they're over-represented in the top 10. Estimates are that approximately 40% of Vietnamese bear the name Nguyễn, but since 2 of the 3 non-Nguyễn riders in the top 10 are overseas riders, 87,5% of the Vietnamese in the top 10 of the HTV Cup do.
 
Considering how common the name is in Vietnam, it's actually quite impressive that they're over-represented in the top 10. Estimates are that approximately 40% of Vietnamese bear the name Nguyễn, but since 2 of the 3 non-Nguyễn riders in the top 10 are overseas riders, 87,5% of the Vietnamese in the top 10 of the HTV Cup do.

Is it like that every year, are there maybe more people with this name living in areas where cycling is more common or possible? Or is it a coincidence?
 

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