April 8/09 19:36 pm - The Maha Chakri Sirindhon's Cup: Tour of Thailand: Stage 5

Posted by Editoress on 04/8/09
 

The Kelly Benefit Strategies Tour of Thailand squad kept it in the family today, switching the leader's yellow jersey from Jake Erker, who has dominated the race all week, to Andrew “Baj” Bajadali. With one stage left to go tomorrow, April 9, KBS leads on the team GC and has riders in four of the top five positions on the general classification.

Going into stage five, the Kelly Benefit Strategies team was tied for first. Bajadali broke away in a group of 18 riders that gained seven minutes on the field in the early part of the race. That lead got whittled down to less than two minutes but Baj successfully controlled the competition in the break to move into the yellow jersey for the final stage, tomorrow. Other KBS riders lost a couple of GC placings but the team overall now leads by 30 seconds going into the final stage.

"Everything went according to plan today, says Jonas Carney, Performance Director. "We didn't want to enter the final day tied for first place. There are too many things that can happen, especially with the time bonuses that are available tomorrow. I would have liked to have seen Erker keep the jersey until the end, because he has really earned it this week, but we needed to play it safe."

The team enters the final stage tomorrow, the 76km circuit race in Udon Thani with Bajadali first, Erker fourth, Zach Bell sixth and Dan Bowman seventh on the GC. Bell is second in the points classification, one point behind the Seoul Cycling team.

Kelly Benefit Strategies press release