Haller takes stage four in Beijing

BEIJING: Marco Haller won the fourth stage of the Tour of Beijing yesterday in his first professional victory, though 2011 champion Tony Martin retained the overall lead with just one leg to go.
Haller, a 21-year-old Austrian racing for Katusha Team, had a late burst to overtake Italian Alessandro Petacchi of Lampre-ISD Team, who had sprinted toward the finish line.
Behind them in third was Stage One winner Italian Elia Viviani for Liquigas-Cannondale team.
“With a final like this it’s also like a casino. You have to be in the right moment in the right spot,” Haller said. “Today I had the luck, I had good legs, everything came together.” Haller and Petacchi both moved up one place after Thursday’s round to 87th and 77th, respectively.
Martin, who races for Omega Pharma-QuickStep, remains in a strong position to defend the title he won last year at China’s first World Tour calendar event.
With overall rankings and timings unchanged on Thursday, the 27-year-old German enters the final leg on Saturday with a 40-second lead over Italian Francesco Gavazzi, who races for the Astana team and won Stage 3 on Thursday.
Martin won the second phase on Wednesday after dominating for most of the tour and cruising across the finishing line with a strong lead of 46 seconds.
He took silver in the men’s individual time trial at the Olympics this year.
Friday’s race started at Yanqing near the Great Wall northwest of the capital and finished 165.5 km later at Changping Stadium north of the city center.
The tour of Beijing is the final event of the season.