February 8/99 10:25 am - Tour of Langkwai reports from stages 5 & 6 and stage 6 results

Posted by Editoress on 02/8/99
 

Tour of Langkawi - Stage 5 report

As predicted this was to be a hard one with no real letting up of the peloton. The canadian team's prerogative was pretty much the same as the other days... To stay alert and cover the moves. In addition, they were to try and get Dominique Perras in front of the group at the top of the 2 first category climbs so he could attempt to rack up more points to keep his KOM jersey. The first half of the race went as planned where our riders were getting into moves and basically being fairly aggressive. The situation started going a bit sour when no points toward the KOM jersey were scored and a group of 40 riders went up the road with only Ceslaw Lukaszewicz in it. The group sneeked away just before the feed zone when most of the pack was falling asleep. It was unfortunate to see that after so much good efforts by the canadians, that a group could just sail away like it did with only one representative; well actually two if you count Mike Barry who's with Saturn... Anyways, after somme mouvements in the final climb, Ceslaw was able to hang on to the front group while Dominique Perras got in a chase group that eventually finished 3 min down. As for the others, Eric, Sylvain and Andrew finished in big group @ 14 min from the lead. And last but not least was Rodney who had a rough day in the climbs. He eventually finished 40 min down.

Well all of this is water under the bridge. With Frank McCormack from Saturn in yellow, we can now concentrate on stages and creating moves.

Tomorrow (Monday) should be a stage where the first half of the race will be calm and towards the end things should act up. It will be interresting to see how saturn will ride stage no. 6. Howevery they ride, we will try to play off the situation.

Stage 6 Melaka - Johor Bahru 223.7 km

A 223km stage mostly flat but with a lot of action. Considering the length of this stage who would of thought that attacks would be launched early on after the 30th kilometer!! Of the riders putting the hurt to the pack early on were Eric Wohlberg and Sylvain Beauchamp. After a few tries a group of 16 riders finally got up the road with Eric at the helm. They eventually made a gap of close to 3 minutes before Mapei decided to start reeling in this potentially dangerous break. Around the 120 k mark, the break was swallowed.

As is usually expected after a break is caught, another one followed with only 5 riders; no Canadians. By this time Mapei started getting a bit tired and decided to start assuming tempo when the break had reached the 5 min lead. With 10 kms to go to the end of the stage, the break still had just under a minute's lead. But then, the pack started gaining momentum in then last kilometers to eventually cross the line with a slender 28 second deficit. The stage win went to Björnar Vestöl of the Danish Accept Card team. As for the yellow jersey, it stays on Frank McCormack's shoulders.

Go Here for a podium shot of Dominique Perras' king of the mountain day on stage 4. (courtesy Tour of Langkawai)

Go Here for a photo of the riders. (courtesy Jacques Landry)

Jacques Landry
Canadian Team manager

Stage 6

Place	Name	Team	Time
1	Vestol,Bjornar	Acceptcard	4:46:56
2	Wajs,Grzegorz	Mroz
3	Nielsen,Jacob	Denmark
4	Leipheimer,Levi	Saturn
5	Yukinari,Hideto	Japan	all s.t.
6	Cei,Luca	Navigare - Gaerne	4:47:24
7	Rodriguez,Fred	Mapei - Quick Step
8	Nielsen,Max	Denmark
9	Miller,Graeme	New Zealand
10	Wadecki,Piotr	Mroz
11	Wrolich,Peter	Team Gerolsteiner
12	Capiot,Johan	T.V.M. Farm Frites
13	Haselbacher,Rene	Team Gerolsteiner
14	Lukaszewicz,Czeslaw	Canada
15	Murray,Karl	New Zealand
16	Muller,Martin	Agro - Adler
17	Ljungquist,Marcus	Cantina Tollo Alexia
18	Dangerfield,Stuart	Great Britain
19	Sturgess,Colin	Great Britain
20	Dam,Stig	Denmark
Other Canadians
37	Barry,Michael	Saturn
59	Beauchamp,Sylvain	Canada
64	Henderson,Rodney	Canada
73	Perras,Dominique	Canada
78	Randell,Andrew	Canada
104	Wohlberg,Eric	Canada	all s.t.
GC after Stage 6
1	Mccormack,Frank	Saturn	21:42:26
2	Tafi,Andrea	Mapei - Quick Step	at 0:10
3	Lowbser,Kosie	Rep. South Africa	0:32
4	Miller,Graeme	New Zealand	0:34
5	Dam,Stig	Denmark	0:43
6	Rodriguez,Fred	Mapei - Quick Step	0:43
7	Sonne,Morten	Acceptcard	0:54
8	Lanfranchi,Paolo	Mapei - Quick Step	0:54
9	Petacchi,Alessandro	Navigare - Gaerne	1:00
10	M¸ller,Dirk	Mapei - Quick Step	1:02
11	Leipheimer,Levi	Saturn	1:03
12	Sauerborn,Andreas	Team Gerolsteiner	1:08
13	Wadecki,Piotr	Mroz	1:11
14	White,Nicholas	Rep. South Africa	1:15
15	Simensen,Ole Sigurd	Agro - Adler	1:17
16	Guldbaek,Stig	Acceptcard	1:19
17	Jonasson,Danny	Acceptcard	1:21
18	Leaper,Tom	Australia	1:27
19	Nocentini,Rinaldo	Mapei - Quick Step	1:31
20	Yukinari,Hideto	Japan	1:35
Canadians
23	Barry,Michael	Saturn	1:41
24	Lukaszewicz,Czeslaw	Canada	1:45
33	Perras,Dominique	Canada	3:56
60	Randell,Andrew	Canada	16:27
67	Wohlberg,Eric	Canada	16:47
68	Beauchamp,Sylvain	Canada	16:52
123	Henderson,Rodney	Canada	57:28
MTN Points
1	Petacchi,A	NAV	31
2	Giunti,M	CTA	26
3	Lanfranchi,P	MAP	24
4	Kristensen,L	DEN	17
5	Ivanov,S	TVM	16
6	Perras,D	CAN	15
Points
1	Miller,G	NZ	90
2	Rodriguez,F	MAP	68
3	Capiot,J	TVM	44
4	Tafi,A	MAP	41
5	Haselbacher,R	GST	40

Rob Jones (Editor) is now in Malaysia. He arrived at 8:30pm local time last night, and flew to Johor Baru to join the riders for stage 7. He told me an interesting story about his brief stopover in Dubai (U.A.E). He wandered into the duty free to see what was what. This was a very special duty free ... they had Mercedes and Porche cars for sale. No, in case you were wondering, he didn't even bother to ask......

 

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