German national champion Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) continued his run of late-season success and took his ninth win of the 2018 season at the end of the rain-soaked second stage at the Tour of Guangxi. The 24-year-old Ackermann has won sprints at the Tour de Romandie, the Criterium du Dauphine, the Tour de Pologne as well as winning the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic, and more recently the Brussels Cycling Classic and the GP de Fourmies. He finished fourth on Tuesday’s opening stage but timed his effort well this time, beating Fabio Jakobsen (Quick Step Floors) and stage 1 winner Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo). Thanks to the time bonuses, Groenewegen kept the leader’s red jersey and now leads Ackermann and Jakobsen by four seconds.ADVERTISEMENT “It was not easy today to get the timing right. It was hectic because of the rain, but also because the last two kilometres were on a big road and totally straight which made it difficult,” Ackermann said. “Yesterday we messed it up a little, but today everything went perfect. There are a lot of really strong sprinters here, so you also need a little bit of luck to get everything right. Today I had the position and also the legs.” The 145.2km stage from Beihai to Qinzhou was raced under warm pouring rain. Richie Porte was one of the first to retire to avoid getting soaked and so the Australian brought down the curtain on his time with BMC Racing. He will move to Trek-Segafredo in 2019. Jhonatan Narvaez (Quick Step Floors) was also forced to quit the race after crashing into a race car after a natural break.
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