Another near miss
The Star, 14/2/2008

BANDAR PENAWAR: Anuar Manan again came agonisingly close to ending Malaysia’s bid for a stage win when he and a bunch of riders crossed the finish line at the same time of Stage Five of the Tour of Langkawi here yesterday.

In the end, defending champion Alberto Loddo picked up his first win, clocking 3’07:53 in the 139.9km Johor Baru-Bandar Penawar race.

Anuar, riding for Le Tua, and four other Malaysian riders were credited with the same time.

The other Malaysian riders who finished in the leading bunch were Mohd Shariff Salleh (MNCF), Ahmad Haidar Anuawar (Le Tua), Mohd Zamri Salleh (Mas) and Mohd Jasmin Ruslan (Mas).

On Monday, Anuar and Mohd Fauzan Ahmad Lufti came in just five seconds behind Stage Three winner Lee Won-jae of South Korea.

Loddo admitted that he was desperate for a stage win considering that his Tinkoff Credit System team-mates had been working hard over the last few days.

“The team worked hard but we had nothing to show for. But today (yesterday) everything went well,” said Loddo, who was closely followed home by Mauro Richeze of CSF Group-Navigare and Aurlien Clerc of Bouygues Telecom in second and third places respectively.

For Anuar it was a day he’d rather forget.

Not only did he miss winning the stage – he was placed sixth – he also lost the sprint jersey that he has had been wearing for the last two days.

Clerc took over the green jersey from Anuar.

The two riders were at it almost the whole day, with Clerc taking the first intermediate sprint in Ulu Tiram before Anuar fought back to take Sprint Two in Kota Tinggi.

But the Frenchman extended his lead to seven points after finishing third in Stage Five.

“The first two sprints were important for us and we took it as the race has been very unpredictable and we do not know what will happen in the end,” said Clerc.

“We have to play it smart although the important thing is that we protect Matthiue (Sprick in the yellow jersey) for the overall standings.”

Sprick, whose bicycle had two punctures on Tuesday, suffered a similar fate yesterday, but is still a second ahead of Mitchell Docker (Drapac Porsche) in the overall standings.

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