The race covered 614.3 kilometres (381.7 mi) across Beijing over five stages, and was the first race to be owned by Global Cycling's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, a move which raised some controversy.[2] It was the 25th race of the UCI World Tour season.[3]
The race was won by HTC–Highroad rider Tony Martin, after winning the opening time trial stage and maintaining his advantage to the end of the race.[4] Martin's winning margin over runner-up David Millar of Garmin–Cervélo was 17 seconds, and Team Sky's Chris Froome completed the podium, 9 seconds behind Millar and 26 seconds down on Martin. In the race's other classifications, Denis Galimzyanov of Team Katusha won the points classification, Euskaltel–Euskadi's Igor Antón won the mountains classification, Ben King finished on top of the young rider classification, with Team Sky topping the teams classification.
As the race was held under the auspices of the UCI World Tour, all eighteen ProTour teams were invited automatically. Together with a selection of Chinese riders forming the Chinese National Cycling Team this formed the event's 19-team peloton.[7]
Tony Martin (GER)
Heinrich Haussler (AUS)
Nicolas Roche (IRL)
Elia Viviani (ITA)
Denis Galimzyanov (RUS)
