Brammeier fourth overall after opening day carnage on Tour of China

Former Irish champion Matt Brammeier put in a solid showing on day one of the Tour of China 1 today.

By Gerard Cromwell

Matt Brammeier lies fourth overall for the Synergy Baku team at the Tour of China 1 after a strong showing on today's opening stage in XI'an.

Having taken the first intermediate sprint of the day and the five seconds time bonus on offer, Brammeier found himself clear with six others for most of the 93.6km stage.

Held on a 10.4km lap around the XI'an Aerospace Base, the stage was marred by torrential rain and lots of crashes.

"The weather conditions were awful and the roads were like ice, which was part of the reason why I was in the breakaway, to make it safer," admitted Brammeier afterwards.

"Today wasn't a long stage but it was hugely stressful."

Although Pawel Bernas (BDC Marcpol) and Oleskondr Polivida (KOLSS) managed to stay clear to the line, the rest of the breakaway group were reeled in ahead of a bunch sprint for third place, won by Neil Van Der Ploeg of Avanti Racing.

Unfortunately for Brammeier's squad, his teammate Maksym Averin was one of those that fell in the sprint to the line, the Azeri rider forced to leave the race with a broken collarbone.

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"I got together with Max to lead him out and at 3km to go, going into a corner, one guy went down and slid right in front of us. I managed to squeeze through with my foot unclipped but Max wasn't so lucky.

"He went wide and hit the kerb and then a tree or lamp post or something."

Thanks to his time bonus today Brammeier is now just nine seconds down on race leader Bernas, in fourth place overall in the eight-day, UCI 2.1 ranked race.