Azernews.Az

Synergy Baku rider Max Averin finished second in the sprint ending the third stage of the Tour of Hainan, while both Samir Jabrayilov and Alex Surutkovych featured in break groups.

That moved Averin to seventh in GC, followed by Surutkovych in eighth. Elchin Asadov and Jabrayilov round out the fine team showing, as they are respectively eleventh and 16th,AzerTag state news agency reported.

Once again, all of the Synergy Baku riders finished in the same time as the stage winner. Enver Asanov was caught up in a crash in the closing kilometer, but escaped uninjured.
Surutkovych was in the first break group of the day, and, as he did yesterday, again picked up bonus seconds at one of the intermediate sprints. When his group was caught, Jabrayilov was amongst the next to get away. The youngster stayed away until nearly the end, and was caught with a mere 1.5 km left on the 134.7km from Haikou to Yueliangwan.
"I'm very happy that Elchin and Alex made a perfect lead-out for me in the crosswind," Max Averin said. "Jeremy made perfect tactics for us this morning. This is great for Azerbaijan cycling."

Samir Jabrayilov was "happy to be in the break and getting so close to the finish, even though I was caught with only 1.5km to go. We are feeling good now after three days here, and happy that Max was second."

Team manager David McQuaid is in Baku to discuss the teams future, and said that "Following Hainan's opening stages has been rewarding as the team have been one of the race's most active and were rewarded today with a podium with Max, but supported by a team effort. Before this China bloc we commented that this bloc was for the Azeri guys, to race as an Azeri team and I think they have already shown that they can do that against a very strong field."

"Concluding successful talks and planning for 2015 and beyond in Baku the last few days, I now look forward to traveling onto Hainan this evening for a brief visit to the race and shaking the hands of our riders and staff, hopefully there is a lot more Baku aggression and success to come later in the week."