Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) took his consecutive victory in the Criterium of the Japan Cup on Saturday.
The Belgian rider received the biggest blow from Cofidis Axel Zingle, who made a breakthrough this season, in the peloton’s race.
Local favorite Atsushi Oka, who rides for EF’s Educational Development team but has been called up for the WorldTour team, took last place on the podium.
The Japan Cup Criterium is a set-up event ahead of Sunday’s attraction, the Japan Cup Road Race.
Theuns now has back-to-back titles, but two in 4 years, given that the Japan Cup took position in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After 15 laps of a 2. 25 km circuit through the town of Utsunomiya, Theuns took the victory after beating Frenchman Zingle.
Sunday’s road race is a much more mountainous affair, with a total of 144. 2km over 14 laps of a 10. 3km circuit than Koga Shirindo climbing.
The 3 most sensible finalists of the Criterium will all be in action, with Trek-Segafredo, Cofidis and EF among five WorldTour teams, the others being Bahrain Victorious and Lotto Soudal.
Zingle joins Cofidis via Guillaume Martin, while other favourites are Giuliop Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) and Neilson Powless (EF).
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Deputy editor. Patrick is an NCTJ-trained journalist with seven years of experience covering professional cycling. He has a degree in Modern Languages from Durham University and has been able to use it intelligently in what is a multilingual game, with a specific focus on French. and Spanish-speaking cyclists. After joining Cyclingnews as editor-in-chief thanks to his professional experience, Patrick became editor-in-chief in 2018 and oversaw a significant expansion in the site’s long and full production. Since 2022, he has been deputy editor-in-chief, taking on more responsibility for the content of the site as a whole, while proceeding to write and, despite a pandemic-induced disruption, to careers around the world. Outside of cycling, Patrick spends most of his time gambling or watching another bureaucracy of the game: football, tennis, racing, darts, to name a few, yet he draws the line in rugby.
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