PREVIEW | Tour of Guangxi 2024 - UAE, Visma and INEOS take on final World Tour battle of the year

The Tour of Guangxi will be the final World Tour event of the season; taking place between the 15th and 20th of October. The peloton will be in China for what is the final stage-race of the season, but one that will still be important to many. We preview the race ahead.

There will be six stages which feature plenty opportunities for the sprinters, a difficult hilltop finish and a few hilly days where the overall classification may be turned on it's head.

The opening stage will take the riders on a circuit around the town of Gangchenggang. It is a day for the sprinters, but stage 1 will already be one with some explosive sections where riders will understand where their form stands - at this time of year this will be over a very wide spectrum.

Three hilltops will be climbed in the final 30 kilometers, the last of which comes with 16 kilometers to go (1Km at 6.7%). Not brutal, but attacks may come. There are over 10 flat kilometers towards the finish then however and it is in no way a technical finale.

Stage 2 is another day for the sprinters but... Again with an interesting obstacle. This time around a slightly longer climb which finishes with 31 kilometers to go, this one is around 7 kilometers long at 4%, not too hard but for some sprinters it may cause trouble and the real issue is the lack of any descent afterwards.

Only flat or slightly uphill roads towards the finale in Jingxi. The finale itself will be completely flat however and without featuring any meaningful technical feature.

The third day of racing is a bit more open. In reality, taking into consideration the climbing capacity of most modern sprinters, it's safe to say many or most will survive the explosive finale into Bama. But the day features 215 kilometers of racing and the roller-coaster finale may prove to be quite difficult to control if the race explodes.

There are a few rolling climbs but the most important will be a 1.4-kilometer long ascent at 7.4% that comes with 35 kilometers to go. I reckon it's hard enough for serious attacks and right after comes a descent which has another small climb in the middle. It's possible to create and extend a gap here whilst there is another small ascent that summits with only 13 kilometers to go.

Here it is possible to hold off the peloton as we have got twisty roads without many straight sections and its not too flat either. The final kilometer, if a sprint is to happen, should also see a ferocious leadout battle as we've got several corners.

Stage 4 will feature some longer climbs, but will we see a sprint again deciding the day? Likely, because the main difficulties of the day come early on - although this could stimulate a dangerous breakaway to be formed.

The last difficult climb is 3.8 kilometers long at 6%, but it comes with 35.5 kilometers to go. Damage can be done but there is still time to recover organization at this point. There will be a bonified uphill sprint with only 12 kilometers to go which could stir things up; but the finale heading into Jinchengjiang is flat and not difficult to put a chase on.

The queen stage. There is absolutely nothing complex on this day, it's an almost pan-flat stage on the fifth day of racing in China which then features an explosive finale that has seen in the past riders crawling over the finish line... Perhaps the most underrated steep climb in the World Tour calendar.

After 160 kilometers of racing the riders will get to the foot of the climb to the Nongla Scenic Spot. The ascent is 4.4 kilometers long and averages around 7%. Not too hard but it's a climb split into two, starting and finishing steep, with a false-flat section in the middle. The final kilometer however is very steep featuring ramps of over 10% all the way to the finish line, an anaerobic effort that perhaps equally suits the puncheurs and climbers.

The final day of the race is already a familiar one, taking place in the city of Nanning. This is an interesting day of racing, on paper seemingly a regular day for the sprinters but the profile doesn't quite show how steep the climb is.

Five laps of a circuit on a short day of racing, only 133 kilometers. In each lap, a steep 1.4-kilometer long climb will be ridden and it averages over 11% average gradient. It's possible to do serious damage here and it comes with 19 kilometers to go. The GC riders will be on their toes, and it's hard to know whether this will end up in a reduced bunch sprint, GC day or anything inbetween.

Prediction Tour of Guangxi 2024 overall classification:

*** Pavel Sivakov, Lennert van Eetvelt
** Alexey Lutsenko, Oscar Onley, Tim Wellens, Milan Vader, Jhonatan Narváez
* Johannes Staune-Mittet, Louis Barré, Lorenzo Fortunato, Victor Lafay, Alex Baudin, Esteban Chaves, Ivan Sosa, Quinn Simmons, Emanuel Buchmann, Max Schachmann, Max Poole, Igor Arrieta, Joseph Blackmore, Jan Hirt, Luke Plapp

Pick: Pavel Sivakov