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LTdL Stage 1: Brown Claims First Win

Athens Olympic gold medallist Graeme Brown, riding for Ceramica Panaria, won the first stage of the Tour of Langkawi 2005 here yesterday clocking 2"19:32.

The race around the Langkawi Island was a clear indication that the Ceramica Panaria outfit are going all out to give a stiff challenge to other top teams like Discovery Channel and Liberty Seguros this year.

The Australian-born rider was awarded the yellow jersey for being the overall winner for the 106.9km race as well as collecting 15 points and the blue jersey for winning the sprint event.

“Going into the last 500m, I had the help of my teammate Bongiorno to go in front where it was between the two of us going into the finishing line,” said Brown.

Ceramica Panaria, who finished second overall in the 2000 edition of the Tour, have been dominating the glamorous Kuala Lumpur Criterium for the past three years.

“The various teams worked hard today to get back into the breakaway group although I was not overly confident that I could come back to the front. We have not set a target of how many stages we want to win, but today's win has definitely put the pressure on the team where we now have to do a lot of work,” he said.

Brown and teammates, Brett Lancaster, were both part of the Australian team that struck gold in the men's Team Pursuit at the August Olympic Games in Athens.

Guillermo Bongiorno, also from the Ceramica Panaria team, claimed the second spot while Oleg Grishkini from Navigators Insurance team finished third. British rider, Kristian house, was best on the climbs and not surprisingly took the King of the mountain jersey.

Ironically, the top cycling team in the world, Discovery Channel, only managed the 20th place for team general classification with a total time of 7 hours and 30 seconds.

For the Asian category, Mahdi Sohrabi of Iran emerged as the best finisher when he clocked 2'19:32 that placed him in ninth overall position.

The national team of Iran, who are also the defending Asian champions, are leading in the Asian team category, having posted a total time of 6'59:00 ahead of Malaysia's first professional team, Proton T-Bikes, who are 42 seconds behind.

It was a good start for the Proton team as their best finisher, Mohd Jasmin Ruslan, ended up in 21st spot overall and claiming the fourth place overall for Asian riders with a time of 2'19:32.

Langkawi 29/01/2005