KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 (Bernama) -- National rider Anuar Manan has achieved his target of donning the green jersey for the third time consecutively when he emerged as the best sprint rider in the Tour of Malaysia 2009 (JM2009) today.
With the success in adding 10 points at the Kuala Lumpur Criterium today, Anuar, 23, beat his nearest rival Mohd Nor Rizuan Zainal from the Malaysian Defence Forces (ATM) team and Mehdi Sohrabi (Iran) from the Tabriz Petrochemical team.
He amassed 29 points, followed by Mohd Nor Rizuan and Mehdi with 24 and 20 points respectively.
"I am thankful to my teammates who helped me a lot in planning my strategy to win in the two sprint zones today.
"I'm also proud that my team (Azad University Continental Team) won four stages of the race and two championship jerseys. I still have my contract until the end of the year with the team I'm representing, and may change to another team or remain with the present team," said the rider who originates from Kuala Ibai, Terengganu.
However, Anuar's target of winning the stage eight of the race today was dashed when he had a puncture with three more laps to go.
"It was quite disappointing when I could not make the sprint to win in the criterium today. After I had the puncture, my team placed their hope of winning on another sprinter from the team, Hossein Nathegi," he said.
Throughout the JM2009, Anuar had won two stages of the race, namely the fourth stage from Tanah Merah to Kuala Terengganu and stage five from Kuala Terengganu to Kuantan.
Meanwhile, Hossein, 22, managed to break away from the group of 61 riders to win the 80.4km Kuala Lumpur Criterium. It was Hossein's second victory in the race.
In the battle for the white jersey, Malaysia's best rider, Muhamad Rauf Misbah beat his team captain and the champion for two years consecutively, Suhardi Hassan who was 17 seconds slower.
After completing the race today, Muhamad Rauf clocked a total of 29 hours, 52 minutes while Suhardi clocked 29 hours, 52 minutes and 41 seconds. In third place was Mohd Saufi Mat Senan who represented the Terengganu Toshiba Bike Labz team (29'55:31s).
"This is the third time I competed in the Tour of Malaysia but the first time that I won the jersey. Although I had beaten Suhardi, it was he who had helped me a lot," said Muhamad Rauf.
Iranian rider Abbas Saeditanha from the Azad University Continental team retained the King of the Mountain title by collecting 15 points after the seventh stage from Tanjung Malim to Gohtong Jaya yesterday.
The yellow jersey for the best overall rider was won by Timothy Roe from the Savings & Loan team after clocking a total of 29 hours 31 minutes and 28 seconds.
"I am ecstatic as I thought the Iranian riders would win the jersey since they are strong riders. I took part in Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) 2009 earlier this year but this is my first win internationally. I will definitely come again for Jelajah Malaysia in future," said Roe.
Trailing him by 24 seconds were Jai Crawford and Ghader Mizbani who were both from the Tabriz Petrochemical team who were in third placing with a total time of 29 hours 31 minutes 53 seconds.
In the competition for the best team overall, Tabriz Petrochemical from Iran became the champion with a total time of 88 hours, 37 minutes and 12 seconds. Meanwhile, another team from Iran, Azad University Continental Team and Savings & Loan, each clocked 88'46:57s and 88'58:47s respectively.
Among the local teams, LeTua won for the second time consecutively with a time of 89'27:51s.
-- BERNAMA
PETALING JAYA, April 24 (Bernama) -- National head coach Datuk K. Rajagobal was let off the hook by the Football Association of Malaysia's (FAM) Disciplinary Committee after finding no evidence that he had violated FAM's Article 88, as claimed. FAM Disciplinary Committee chairman Datuk Taufik Abdul Razak said the committee had decided not to charge Rajagobal after carefully analysing the video of the post-match press conference by the 56-year-old coach. "After listening to the recording of the post-match press conference, we decided to drop the charge against Rajagopal as he did not make such a statement. "Maybe his (Rajagobal) assessment and comments of the match was misconstrued by the media. There was no mention of the FAM policy throughout his comments," said Taufik after emerging from a three-hour Disciplinary Committee meeting at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, here, Wednesday. Rajagobal who does not mince his words when asked to com...
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