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Stephens Confident in Malaysia
Matthew Stephens of the Linda McCartney Pro Cycling Team continued his great early season run with another top 10 placing, as he cruised into 8th place on the first road stage of the Tour of Langkawi.
It was a great day all round for the McCartney team, as they managed to place four of the six-man team in the front group of the race, which today conquered two mighty climbs shortly before finishing on the holiday island of Penang.
The big Norwegian Bjornar Vestol is Linda McCartney's best placed rider overall, as he finished in that first group, ensuring that the 15th place he had posted in the previous day's short time trial was protected. He lies at 45 seconds behind the leader. Under instructions from Keith Lambert, their manager for this race, the team had ridden within themselves at the time trial, and then stayed relaxed and comfortable over today's 174 hot and windy kilometres.
"It's a 12-day race, and it's important that the riders don't get carried away too soon, especially in this kind of weather," explained Keith Lambert.
As if to illustrate his point, two riders from the Phillipines struggled alone for the majority of the day, only to be swept up easily when the bunch passed over the huge Penang Bridge and on to the island's mountain roads. When the race dashed down the second long twisting descent, Matt Stephens was confident enough to clip off the front of the bunch to pick up some extra seconds. Just 5 seconds ahead of him, new Australian champion Jamie Drew was picking up the stage victory. Bjornar Vestol, Matt Stephens, Ciaran Power and David McKenzie are all within two minutes of the new leader, Daniele Contrini of the Italian Liquigas squad.
"I'm still feeling good after the Tour Down Under," said Matt. "There's some big, big stages to come, and there's a long way to go, so I don't expect it to come down to a few seconds like the Australian race. It's important to watch whats happening and not blow yourself out too soon."
The race has an unusual field, with in the region of 150 riders from vastly differing backgrounds. Some of the very best riders around are here. There is Evgeni Berzin, former Tour de France yellow jersey, and a winner of the Tour of Italy and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, a very strong Farm Frites team led by Tour de France stage winner Sergei Ivanov, with Glenn Magnusson and Jan Koerts alongside him. But there are also national teams from China, Indonesia and Malaysia relishing the chance to ride on worldwide TV in one of the richest races outside Europe. It makes for a race that is never dull, frequently very quick, and always dangerous. There were a number of crashes today, the most serious being a nasty fall on the first major descent for Malaysian rider Mohammed Mahazir, who was taken away in an ambulance with a suspected broken leg.
Report by John Deering
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