Tour of Korea 2013 - Spoilers

mroli

This one is probably bubbling under for a lot of people - but worth noting that Mike Cuming (Brit U23 champ and Rapha Condor JLT rider) is currently in the yellow jersey, having taken the lead on Stage 6 - http://www.tourdekorea.or.kr/ is the slightly clunky official webpage. 2 stages to go. Next stage looks fairly lumpy, final day looks like a short sprinters stage. Be incredible if he could win this. Only got 2 teammates left in - Rich Handley and Elliot Porter though...

wombly_knees

Shame that Cheung King Lok lost the leaders jersey and that Shep's failed to close in. Cheung did brilliantly to hold on to the lead for so long, and he's mainly a sprinter. He was in the lead group for a while but got dropped today and Hong Kong lost a minute in the TTT. Denis van Niekerk has been in the break for the past three days, iirc. Should be a good couple of days if MTN go again.

The mountain stage was average though the last 3 km were good. Nishitani finished with the favourites and he's a sprinter who's not lousy on the hills.

Cyclingiq's coverage reports have been rather thorough. Tour of Korea's twitter handle's also rather up to date.

Daily highlights here
http://www.youtube.com/user/kspo97/videos

Richmond Racer

Was following this on Twitter this morning. Pleased for John Herety - he's developing a predominantly young squad, with only a few old hands like Jimmy Mac, House and Clancy. Even if Cuming loses the jersey as looks likely tomorrow, its still v good result for the team.

mroli

Especially as its the v young guys out there - the older guys are all at home riding the Tour Series. Fantastic experience for these (mostly) U23s

inkyfingers

Sorry, but I can't support this. As a British team that wears a black Rapha kit, they are severely tainted in my eyes.

wombly_knees

Cuming holds on, just about. Cheung got in the break, drove it and chased. Hong Kong's team is completely cooked too, mind, and not too strong apart from the pair of Cheung and Choi. Cho took the stage and Shep came second. Asian champion Muradjan Halmuratov was third.

And van Niekerk was in the break again.

lyn1

These sort of UCI races e.g. Korea, Taiwan and even the Ras are ideal for the Premier Calendar riders as it gives them a rare opportunity to ride for several days continuously. This makes them tougher, although overall the actual standard of rider is no better than the Premiers, so there is some protection for the less experienced riders, in that they are unlikely to be well out of their depth.
Hope Mike can hang on.

wombly_knees

I think it'd be fair to say the riders here are better than the premier series riders. Arredondo won Langkawi and gave a lesson to Earle in Kumano, and he's been struggling to make an impact in this race.

But yes, agree that it's definitely good for development.

Also, it was Cho's 39th birthday today.

lyn1

wombly knees wrote:

I think it'd be fair to say the riders here are better than the premier series riders. Arredondo won Langkawi and gave a lesson to Earle in Kumano, and he's been struggling to make an impact in this race.
quote]

Fair point, some will be stronger (particularly with the loss of the top Endura riders from PC), others not necessarily as strong, which is why I used "overall" as I was also generalising across three races in the example.

mroli

Still UCI ranked event which is a great window for the young Rapha riders to put themselves in the window. I think Herety's team selection says a lot about what it means to RCJLT - House/Clancy/McCallum/English all riding domestically, but the boys that he's hoping to bring through as stage racers are all out there. Cuming did well to hang on by all accounts - and owes a lot to Handley.
http://cyclingiq.com/2013/06/15/2013-to ... hongcheon/
is a good report - sounds like it was a fantastic stage. Fingers crossed for them tomorrow.

frenchfighter

I wish they would televise these races or least have long recorded it. The Asian riders are always very aggressive and love to attack.

frenchfighter

Not seen that site before WW. Good info, reports and photos. Thanks.

frenchfighter

I love the Nippo kit and their De Rosas are superb

mroli

Hard beaten seasoned pros eh?

mroli

Nice pic of Rich Handley working on the front:

wombly_knees

frenchfighter wrote:

I wish they would televise these races or least have long recorded it. The Asian riders are always very aggressive and love to attack.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kspo97/videos
May be on domestic telly, but like all Asian 2.2s, no international television partner.

The latter is to do with the lack of strength of the teams (though rather strong in this race), even the Tour of Vietnam with its crap course made for interesting viewing.

From stage 6. Kinglok Cheung at the front, with not a teammate in sight. Would rather not piss off Aziz by posting all he shared over here (think it's Aaron Lee's pics in cyclingiq), but he's got more photographs for this and other Asia tour races at caphotographic.


Gonna be a tough ask for Cheung to win from here. He'll need teammate Choi or another strong rider to help him. Likely won't be joined by Nishitani though, he'll have sprint aspirations along with Optum Kelly and should favour Cuming.

Cyclingiq is the media officer for this race. The race organisers have done a top job, and to follow up on the rather disastrous 2012.

Turfle

One stage left, one teammate left.

wombly_knees

Seems Cuming has held on, well done him. Cheung again got in the break and won the intermediate sprint, but couldn't go all the way. Great effort, tried pretty much everything. 9" win

Sheppard 3rd on the day.

mroli

Yep - sounds like Cheung made it hard for Cuming right up to the last - taking intermediate sprints, so if he won the stage he'd have had the overall... Great result for Cuming - its not going to get the publicity it deserves, but winning a stage race like that for a young British rider is massive.

Turfle

Very well done that man. And that team.

The change in direction from Rapha seems to be working out nicely, with the likes of Cuming and Handley looking to be developing very nicely, and Hugh Carthy who I still haven't managed to see ride, but have heard lots of good things about.

Condor Production

Mike and Richard were expected to step up this season and have done so in style with the younger guys there for experience and to assist.

Certainly no walk in the park, these races tend to be full on with constant attacking with no respite on he final day. I've been lucky enough to witness the Tour of Taiwan from the team car on one stage an they were not hanging around. They missed out on the hilly TTT by only 3 seconds and featured in several breaks with Mike making the best move.

The twitter updates were superb and website with all results, pics an videos.

Rich Handley rode his socks off to help protect the lead for Mike an is a classy rider. They will hopefully both eventually step up to the next rung of the pro level, maybe ProTour one day.

Please remember its the "Rapha-Condor-JLT" team