Paul Magnier takes win number 16 of the year in Guangxi - "We wanted to take the victory again"

Soudal - Quick-Step have in Paul Magnier an absolute diamond, not just a talent in development. The 21-year old isn't racing the highest-level calendar but has reached a stellar achievement of taking 16 victories this year already, taking yet another World Tour triumph this Wednesday at the Tour of Guangxi.

“We had another good day at the office. It was fast today and the breakaway was strong, but Warre [Vangheluwe] was incredibly strong and was motivated to do a great job, especially as he won here last year and we wanted to take the victory again," Magnier said in a press release. Soudal - Quick-Step had a tougher mission controlling the breakaway of the day and the late attacks from riders such as Ewen Costiou and Jhonatan Narváez. However a bunch sprint still went ahead, and the Frenchman bet all his coins on it after winning stage 1 in a regular sprint.

Although the stage lacked the profile difficulties usually favour the 21-year old, he had the pure power to take the win over Pavel Bittner in Jingxi. "I saved energy in the bunch, then Dries [de Bondt] put me in a perfect position for the finishing straight, and I did my best in the sprint. I am happy with my two victories so far, and we’ll just see what we can do in the remaining stages”.

Magnier still has, realistically, three more opportunities to take stage wins this week although a few of those feature quite a bit of climbing and may see attackers or a breakaway succeed. He will not reach the number of victories from Tadej Pogacar, but a second place this season in terms of UCI victories seems to be the achievement that he will accomplish after in the past few months he dominated the sprints of several stage-races and also took several wins in one-day races.