Asia Tour 2013
I've been halfheartedly following the Asia Tour since I shared a lift with some of the OCBC team to and from the race up Doi Inthanon in 2012.
As a result of the interest generated by Cuming's success in the Tour of Korea I discovered the cyclingiq site which has been providing excellent coverage of the recent races. This has enabled me to follow the Tour more closely.
Inspired by the fact that Loh Sea Keong of OCBC has just won the GC at Jelajah Malaysia (which I believe is OCBC's first ever overall victory in a stage race) I thought I'd start a thread. I doubt the interest level is sufficient to warrant separate threads for each race but figured those of us interested could use this thread to discuss all races which are part of the Asia Tour 2013.
Here's a link to the excellent CyclingIQ site:
http://cyclingiq.com/
As a result of the interest generated by Cuming's success in the Tour of Korea I discovered the cyclingiq site which has been providing excellent coverage of the recent races. This has enabled me to follow the Tour more closely.
Inspired by the fact that Loh Sea Keong of OCBC has just won the GC at Jelajah Malaysia (which I believe is OCBC's first ever overall victory in a stage race) I thought I'd start a thread. I doubt the interest level is sufficient to warrant separate threads for each race but figured those of us interested could use this thread to discuss all races which are part of the Asia Tour 2013.
Here's a link to the excellent CyclingIQ site:
http://cyclingiq.com/
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Comments
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The Asia Tour is not immune from the resurgence of Colombia as a cycling power with Julian David Arredondo Moreno currently leading the individual rankings.
http://www.uciasiatour.com/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template3/layout.asp?MenuId=MjA3OA&LangId=10 -
Cheers Deadcalm. Tis my favourite continental tour.
Yeah, Cam's done a great job with the site. Been a bit harder for him updating the site after shifting to Switzerland so he's picking and choosing races nowadays and I only know of one other blag dedicated to the Asian and Carib races.
Apart from him, Fitri Majid on twatter is very good for updates on Malaysian races and Customs cycling club for the races they're invited to (Jelajah Malaysia, Singkarak and maybe tour of Borneo later), the local media, and of course OCBC. It was OCBC's first overall win, and the team have had three wins so far, all from Sea Kong (a late break specialist). Sea Keong's an all round nice guy, very approachable for anyone.
50th anniversary of the first Jelajah Malaysia this year, and it was in extreme doubt whether all stages would be held as planned due to the haze; plans were made to hold city criteriums in case it got too bad. Last year was made a bit more challenging with late hills after a few spat dummies in 2011 by some big budget teams, but they made the route much flatter this year. Harrif Salleh, Terengganu cycling team's gun sprinter, got his first win of the year. Reckon that Baku cycling, who won the first stage through Pozdnyakov and the last stage with Jabrailov, missed an engine like McConvey. The stage where Sea Keong got the overall lead, Lex Nederlof finished second. He's 47 years old. Aaron Donnelly's also having a nice time in the past year with that Sun Tour stage win and again here.
Favourite race of mine is the Tour of Philippines, used to be the equivalent of the Filipino GT in the 80s and was the Asian GT in the late 90s before the costs killed it. Just a 4 stage race nowadays. Had an interesting piece by the race's first winner, Antonio Arzala (1955,56&59), about the race, will look if I can find it.
Next race is Qinghai Lake and Fantini will race there. Hoping Gadher Mizbani's form has held on, the races there went up to 3800 metres above sea level last year. Qinghai lake should have videos on a site like qqride (a Chinese cycling forum).0 -
Thanks Wombly. You sure know the Asia Tour.wombly knees wrote:Cheers Deadcalm. Tis my favourite continental tour.
Yeah, Cam's done a great job with the site. Been a bit harder for him updating the site after shifting to Switzerland so he's picking and choosing races nowadays and I only know of one other blag dedicated to the Asian and Carib races.
Apart from him, Fitri Majid on twatter is very good for updates on Malaysian races and Customs cycling club for the races they're invited to (Jelajah Malaysia, Singkarak and maybe tour of Borneo later), the local media, and of course OCBC. It was OCBC's first overall win, and the team have had three wins so far, all from Sea Kong (a late break specialist). Sea Keong's an all round nice guy, very approachable for anyone.
50th anniversary of the first Jelajah Malaysia this year, and it was in extreme doubt whether all stages would be held as planned due to the haze; plans were made to hold city criteriums in case it got too bad. Last year was made a bit more challenging with late hills after a few spat dummies in 2011 by some big budget teams, but they made the route much flatter this year. Harrif Salleh, Terengganu cycling team's gun sprinter, got his first win of the year. Reckon that Baku cycling, who won the first stage through Pozdnyakov and the last stage with Jabrailov, missed an engine like McConvey. The stage where Sea Keong got the overall lead, Lex Nederlof finished second. He's 47 years old. Aaron Donnelly's also having a nice time in the past year with that Sun Tour stage win and again here.
Favourite race of mine is the Tour of Philippines, used to be the equivalent of the Filipino GT in the 80s and was the Asian GT in the late 90s before the costs killed it. Just a 4 stage race nowadays. Had an interesting piece by the race's first winner, Antonio Arzala (1955,56&59), about the race, will look if I can find it.
Next race is Qinghai Lake and Fantini will race there. Hoping Gadher Mizbani's form has held on, the races there went up to 3800 metres above sea level last year. Qinghai lake should have videos on a site like qqride (a Chinese cycling forum).
Those of you interested in the careers of the former Endura boys who went to NetApp might like to keep an eye on the tour of Qinghai Lake as Thwaites, Rowsell and McEvoy are due to take part. Lampre are also taking a squad as well as a bunch of pro-conti teams. It will feature 13 stages and starts on 7th July. The official site in English which has startlists, profiles, etc. (and appears to promise videos) can be found here:
http://www.tdql.cn/en/index.html
Edit: At first glance the profiles don't look particularly remarkable. But check out the altitudes that they will riding at.0 -
Wowzers, nice website this year. Twas virus infested rubbish last year, and the sprint field's brilliant. Stage 7 is nice, stage 2 would work in a lesser race.0
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Jono Lovelock's post on cyclingtips about his Qinghai Lake a couple of years ago-here
A squatting toilet is a latrine, Jono. Jono was Sea Keong's teammate around that time at Marco Polo.
The race preview video
Mezgec was signed by Argos based on this race performance really, think he got 4 or 5 wins last year. Alizadeh won last year, amid Tabriz's financial struggles, in what was their only stage race win, I think. He'll be in Amore e Vita this time, but not as good a climber as Kolahdozagh or Mizbani.
Didn't find the Tour of Philippines' original article by Arzala, but seems some have saved extracts from it (was the Tour of Luzon back then before becoming the marlboro tour to what it is now)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Philippin ... sage/599300 -
CyclingIQ's excellent preview of the tour of Quingai Lake
4,120 metres above sea level is insanely high.0 -
Asked cyclingiq last year too; that surely has to be the highest point of all the UCI continental calendars.
Fantini make no sense, they chose to keep Sano out for the Japanese swing and ride him for this race.
CCTV5 streams here, but will look at qqride when they have it.
One amusing story about Qinghai lake was from 2010. Ivan Stevic was thrown out of the lake race. Given his history, it wouldn't be a stretch to think it was drug related, but as it was, he won stage 4 and flipped the bird, intended at his mechanic, as a victory celebration and bringing the race into "disrepute".0 -
Sacha Modolo (Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox) wins stage 1 of Tour of Qinghai Lake.
There was live online coverage apparently. I didn't wake up in time to catch it but they apparently used camera drones to great effect. I'm looking forward to checking out the video later.0 -
Yeah, decent quality too unlike the Japanese streams.
Rico Rogers was second and Chicchi third. Rogers is having a brilliant season.0 -
Photographs from stage 1
http://www.qqride.com/bbs/viewthread.ph ... a=page%3D1
The Game of Thrones Qinghai Lake Video
http://www.kktv.tv/html/cycling/594.html
http://www.kktv.tv/html/cycling/592.html
Images and results
http://www.cyclingcn.com/RacesPicDetail.aspx?id=87
http://cyclingiq.com/2013/07/08/2013-to ... cuit-race/
Just seen that Gang Xu is no longer Chinese Champion. Champion systems looking distinctly monochromatic.0 -
De la fuente won stage 2, but today was a tabriz trademark. Load the break with 3 or 4 in the break and drive it to win. olahdozhagh now 2nd in the GC and stage. Pourseyedi won and leads.0
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Been a drag, the past few days. Modolo winning all the sprints and Pourseyede all but winning the overall. First race on his return from a doping suspension.0
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Real life has intruded somewhat and I've not been following it as closely as I'd have liked but Modolo has been dominant winning 6 out of 12 stages so far. It would have been seven if, on stage 5, the peloton hadn't stopped to protest at being forced to ride in the rain, allowing the breakaway to get a massive lead. He also won the bunch sprint on stage 10 after the peloton were unable to catch a four man break that included Scott Thwaites.wombly knees wrote:Been a drag, the past few days. Modolo winning all the sprints and Pourseyede all but winning the overall. First race on his return from a doping suspension.
Apart from Thwaites' second place finish on stage 10, the NetApp – Endura boys have been pretty much anonymous.
The average speeds have been very fast (over 48kph today apparently) which, coupled with the leader's history, isn't doing the race's reputation any favours.0 -
Worth checking out Matt Brammeier's twitter account on this one
(He basically says there is huge amount of doping)Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
DeadCalm wrote:
Real life has intruded somewhat and I've not been following it as closely as I'd have liked but Modolo has been dominant winning 6 out of 12 stages so far. It would have been seven if, on stage 5, the peloton hadn't stopped to protest at being forced to ride in the rain, allowing the breakaway to get a massive lead. He also won the bunch sprint on stage 10 after the peloton were unable to catch a four man break that included Scott Thwaites.wombly knees wrote:Been a drag, the past few days. Modolo winning all the sprints and Pourseyede all but winning the overall. First race on his return from a doping suspension.
Apart from Thwaites' second place finish on stage 10, the NetApp – Endura boys have been pretty much anonymous.
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Thwaites has had a number of top 10s in much tougher fields than this and I expected them to ride for him on a number of stages given they had no other outstanding candidates (unless he was ill), but that hasn't happened on any stage. They appear to have forfeited the hilly stages and for the sprint stages applied the "Today we rode for (insert name of a German rider)" approach. Rumours of disquiet voiced on an earlier thread re this merger(takeover?) probably will not be helped by the Endura riders all appearing to be adopting supporting roles once again.0 -
But as yet, a random insinuation on a soft target. He's seen doped racers elsewhere, where was his outrage then?DeadCalm wrote:
Thanks. It looks as though he has more to say than the usual platitudes. I've added him.iainf72 wrote:Worth checking out Matt Brammeier's twitter account on this one
(He basically says there is huge amount of doping)
Think he made it a day or two after the Kazakhs and Iranians dominated a stage. The Kazakhs are a step above Asian riders, including, imo, Brammeier, and Iranians are very used to altitudes topping 2000 metres (Tour of Iran, another high altitude race). Not to mention this is the peak of their season.
There are rumours around Iranian teams (mainly perpetuated by others), and there have been suspensions, but it is a bit carp when riders just shoot off.0
