Tour deLangkawi

Guest

Wong Kam Po has been winning the Best Asian Rider title in the TdL. He also won the Tour of the Philippines  (aka the Marlboro Tour) a few times. I think he will be turning pro sometime soon...too bad he is already a bit too old.

BTW, he is the 2nd best known athlete in Hong Kong.

Guest

Marlboro Tour? not the ideal sponsor for a bike race hehe

Vo2

I've never heard of a tobacco sponsored cycle race before.  Kinda weird.

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Guest

Yep, Marlboro was a major sponsor of the Tour of Luzon (or Tour of the Philippines) for several years. When they pulled out, the annual tour here stopped....so no more major (by local standards) bike races here.

Mild Seven also sponsors the Outdoor Quest..so tobacco sponsors in sporting events aren't rare. The Outdoor Quest has quite a lot of MTBing legs.

Guest

did they have the Malboro Lung cancer award there ???

Vo2

Hunter 3rd Stage 7!
South Africa have now moved up into 3rd position in the Team GC.

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Vo2

The South African team management are fuming after team manager Greame McCallum and Jeremy Maartens were thrown off the tour in the sixth stage of the Tour de Langkawi.

McCallum paced Maartens back to the bunch after he struck a cone and punctured both wheels and a race referee ludicrously disqualified them both.

In cycling its common practice to help a rider to the bunch when he punctures. When he loses the pace and then gets helped back it’s another story.

Usually a manager is warned on the road, but the race referee’s radio wasn’t working in this instance and McCallum couldn’t hear the warnings. The SA team aren’t about to leave the situation there and SA’s head manager, Bart Harmse, has vowed to take things up with the race organisers.

“Jeremy is an integral part of the team and has done unbelievable work as a domestique. He was also going to play a major part in the Genting climbing stage,” he said.

The feeling in the camp is that they are being punished by the organisers for allegedly working with Mapei-Quickstep in the previous stage in which Robert Hunter claimed his third stage victory.

Compared to some of the other “crimes” thus far in the tour, which include riders holding onto their team cars, the incident with Maartens deserved a lighter sentence.

It has happened on various occasions that riders have held onto vehicles in the tour without being punished. In the light of that the Maartens disqualification makes little sense.

Taken from Cyclelab website

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Guest

A rather harsh reaction by the organizers. I feel a lighter sentence would have done.
Good to see that the team is still up there with David George in GC 8. and RSA 3rd in the team classification (in front of heavyweights like Acqua & sapone, Fakta or CA) - impressive performance.

Vo2

Ploner, your prophetic words regarding Stage 9 have materialised. Hunter lost the lead in the mountains. Wonder what the tactics will be like for tomorrow? Hunter is down by 40 secs. What is there else to do but attack - attack -attack?

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Guest

Can you post the results of that stage? I cant find them anywhere  ???

Vo2

Results of Stage 9 here

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Guest

That should be it, I can't imagine any big changes in the GC on the final stage. Munoz should take overall and Mapei has the team GC (RSA second - very impressive) plus points jersey and a bunch of stage wins. Personally, I would have expected to see a bit more of Lanfranchi and Canada. Anyway, it was a great race and it's good to see that road cycling establishes itself more and more also outside Europe.

P.S. My "prophecy" concerning Munoz was rather second-hand knowledge. There are some real experts in the German forum I usually visit (they seem to know every rider in the top 5000 UCI ranking, including their results over the last 10 years) and they had spotted Munoz as the rider to watch.

Guest

Ploner ! Too modest take a bow!  My prophecy of Marin playing a part was borne out in the cyclingnews.com stage 9 editorial when Munoz said "I have to thank my teammates for working so hard to get me to the foot of the climb and especially Ruber Alviro Marin for pacing me up to the front."  ;D

Eldron

South Africans 2nd and 3rd with the National Squad 2nd overall. It's early in the season and the 'real' pro's weren't there - you know what? I don't care!

Goooooooooh South Africa.

The secret of Hunter's success? Riding a LOT - I rode a fair amount over xmas in SA and saw Rob Hunter riding out west (Randfontein, Krugersdorp etc) almost every day.