Another "Navigator" pulls on yellow jersey at Tour de Qinghai Lake

The "Navigators" enjoyed another day of victory here as they retained the three jerseys for all the competitors while Jeremy Maartens from South Africa claimed the first stage win Wednesday in Xining at the Tour de Qinghai Lake fifth stage.

The contention of the stage, a flat course with slightly down hill from Qinghai Lake to Xining, mainly put up between the four men, breaking away after 30km and leading the main bunch until the very end.

The 24-year-old Jeremy Maartens clocked three hours, 47 minutes and 23 seconds after holding off Miorin Devis, De Nardi, and Phillip Zajicek, Navigators, by throwing his front wheel over the finish line.

The temporary race leader Viktar Rapinski from Navigators who have won two bunch sprints arrived with the main group after two minutes 33 seconds, costing him the yellow jersey. His teammate Zajicek took over and kept the jersey in the Navigators, slenderly leading over Miorin Devis from De Nardi Team of Italy.

"It is quite exciting," said Zajicek, 25, "but tomorrow will be very hard."

Rapinski, 23, held on the the leading sprinter's green jersey while Christopher Baldwin, another "Navigator" kept the red for the best climber.

Iglinskiy Maxim, the overall runner-up here last year reserved the leading place in the Asian riders list.

The 95 riders remaining will come up against the toughest course of the race tomorrow, where they will climb 30km to the highest point of the race, 3,792 meters in altitude. And the chance for the climbing specialists finally comes.