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LTdL Stage 10: Cox Crowned Overall Champion

Ryan Cox sealed a well deserved overall title on a day when the Greame Brown-Panaria show proved too strong again in the final stage of the Telekom Malaysia Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL), the Kuala Lumpur Criterium yesterday.

It was a victory which South African Barloworld rider Cox had worked for in the previous four editions of the Tour, and nailed it thanks mostly to a strong Stage Four time trial and victory up Genting on Stage Eight.

Yesterday's 65-kilometre criterium saw yet another bunch sprint dominated by the Panaria train with Australian Brown registering his fifth stage win this year, stretching his record to nine stage wins ever. Brown also proved to be the superior sprinter in the bunch this time around, raking in a massive 129 points to bag the points competition.

Cox also won the polka dot King of the Mountains jersey, although he was tied on 37 points with Bridgestone-Anchor's Koji Fukushima.

Koji, undoubtedly the most popular rider on the Tour this time around, wore off a strong surge from Wismilak's Tonton Susanto to bag the Asian riders' title by a mere one second.

Cox and teammate Tiaan Kannemeyer's strong showing led Barloworld to a repeat team title, while as expected Iran also successfully defended their Asian team title.

Unprepared and totally out of ideas, it was another embarrassing outing for the two-pronged Malaysian challenge, with invitational team Proton T-Bikes and the national team filling the bottom two places with massive time deficits.

Worse still, of the 14 Malaysians who started the Tour on Jan 28, the national team finished with just four riders, while Proton T-Bikes with just three.

Kuala Lumpur 7/2/2005