Skip to main content

Guardini Powers His Way To First Stage Win With Astana

DUNGUN, Feb 27 (Bernama) -- Good team work towards the finishing line enabled Italy's Andrea Guardini of Astana Pro Team to win stage seven of the 2013 Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL), his first in 2013.


The 23-year-old, sprinting to his first victory of the 2013 season, clocked three hours, 37 minutes and 17 seconds in the 149.80km race from Kuantan, Pahang to Dungun, Terengganu.

The victory today brings his career total at LTdL race to 12 stage wins.

"It is so hard for me at the beginning of the season to get my first win, and after today I am happy and relaxed and I know that the energy and motivation for me and the whole team is very high," Guardini said.

His team mate, Ruslan Tleubayev and Assan Bazayev took turns at the front for Guardini, pulling hard in the last 10km, especially with wind coming off the sea and a long, straight road to the finish.

"Baza was there at 5km to go until 2km, and then Ruslan took me to 500m. The wind was coming from the right, so I stayed behind the Orica Greenedge rider and started my sprint at 200m to go on the left, protected from the wind. It was perfect positioning, perfect timing and perfect win," Guardini said.

Guardini continued to don the Blue jersey (sprint competition) with 22 points ahead of his nearest rival, Anuar Manan of Synergy-Baku Cycling Project, who accumulated 50 points.

In the general classification, Colombia's Julian David Arredondo Moreno of Team Nippo-De Rosa retained the Yellow jersey after accumulating 5'55:05s.

He was just 01:15s in front of his nearest rival, the Pieter Weening of Orica GreenEdge from the Netherlands.

"I am glad that today me and my team mates could control the breakaway and we arrived in Dungun as we wanted," he said.

China's Wang Meiyin continued to wear the Red jersey (mountain competition) and the White jersey (best Asian rider).

In the team general classification, professional continental team from South Africa, MTN Qhubeka lead the pace with a time of 77'54:13s.

The LTdL race will continue with Stage eight tomorrow, a 164.50km distance from Kuala Terengganu to Tanah Merah, Kelantan, a route that includes three sprint zones at Desa Fikri, Kampung Raja and Pasir Puteh.

-- BERNAMA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ex-coach's jail sentence cut to a year

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal yesterday sentenced former athletics coach C. Ramanathan to 12 months' jail for molesting two junior athletes 19 years ago. A three-man bench led by Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus unanimously dismissed Ramanathan's appeal against conviction, but varied the jail sentence of four years to a year, which was to run concurrently. Following yesterday's ruling, Ramanathan, 75, a former teacher, walked out a free man as he had served 10 months in Kajang Prison. Convicts get one-third remission for good behaviour while in prison. However, he will lose his pension. Hishamudin, who sat with Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail and Datuk Linton Albert, said the court found no merit to overturn the conviction. "However, in reducing the sentence, we considered Ramanathan's age and the long years the appeal has taken." Deputy public prosecutor Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud submitted that then High Court judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid E...
2 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Rajagobal Let Off The Hook

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...
4 comments
Read more