Rene Weissinger successfully defended his yellow jersey by
winning consecutive stages for Skil-Shimano of the Netherlands in
the Tour of Qinghai Lake cycling race, which extended 162
kilometers from Bird Island to Xihai County.
Weissinger meant what he said as a good sprinter, duplicating
his first stage win by pulling out of a bunch of riders to wrap up
the second stage title in three hours 42 minutes 18 seconds.
"I caught up in the last 25 kilometers, and I tried to sprint
out of the group at the last gasp to win again. It's so fantastic.
Yesterday is harder, but today I got the pressure to defend the
yellow jersey," said Weissinger.
"I'm proud of wearing the jersey as the captain, and my team
will definitely try to defend the jersey as best as we can do."
"We caught up in the last 25 kilometers, so I didn't worry about
the results," said Pieter Hoekstra, team manager of Skil-Shimano
from the Netherlands.
"We stayed in Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province, for
eight days before the race and we also spent eight days in Qinghai
Lake where is 3,000 meters high before Xining's stay, so the
highland is not too hard for our riders," Hoekstra added.
"We have good hotel, good food, so everything is OK and we don't
complain. We will do our best to defend the jersey and I will not
say yes and not say no, for we still have seven stages, which will
be very hard. At least we have kept the yellow jersey for two
days."
Alex Pavlov of South Africa snatched the mountain climbing title
from Askari Hossein, while the first-day's mountain king retained
the Asia best honor representing Giant Asia Racing Team from
Chinese Taipei.
The fifth Tour of Qinghai Lake 2006 consists of nine stages held
on July 15th-23rd with 140 riders on behalf of 20 teams?from
five continents participating in this event. The total race
distance will be approximately 1,350 kilometers. The total amount
of prize money will be US$250,000.
?(China Daily July 17, 2006)