06 Feb 2007
ALBERTO Loddo again outwitted the sprinters' teams to win a bunch sprint and took his second stage win in the 12th edition of Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) in Kota Baru yesterday.The fourth stage that began 178.2 kilometres away in Gua Musang served up action to match what was arguably the best crowd support this year's Tour has received thus far as throngs of people, mostly schoolchildren, lined the streets almost every other kilometre from start to finish.
A Panaria squad weakened by the premature abandonment of Ruben Bongiorno, led out Maximiliano Richeze after the peloton had gobbled up Tinkoff's Serguei Klimov — the final escapee in a seven-man breakaway that lasted almost 80 kilometres — just three kilometres from the finish.Loddo's Serramenti Diquigiovanni team had unusually teamed up to form a leadout train that effectively leveled him with the South Africans who led out Daryl Impey. Tinkoff, who had done some of the work to keep the seven-man break at bay within three minutes of the peloton, failed to do justice when their sprinter Nikolai Trusov only managed 10th placing, even behind Malaysian team Le Tua's Anuar Manan.
ALBERTO Loddo again outwitted the sprinters' teams to win a bunch sprint and took his second stage win in the 12th edition of Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) in Kota Baru yesterday.The fourth stage that began 178.2 kilometres away in Gua Musang served up action to match what was arguably the best crowd support this year's Tour has received thus far as throngs of people, mostly schoolchildren, lined the streets almost every other kilometre from start to finish.
A Panaria squad weakened by the premature abandonment of Ruben Bongiorno, led out Maximiliano Richeze after the peloton had gobbled up Tinkoff's Serguei Klimov — the final escapee in a seven-man breakaway that lasted almost 80 kilometres — just three kilometres from the finish.Loddo's Serramenti Diquigiovanni team had unusually teamed up to form a leadout train that effectively leveled him with the South Africans who led out Daryl Impey. Tinkoff, who had done some of the work to keep the seven-man break at bay within three minutes of the peloton, failed to do justice when their sprinter Nikolai Trusov only managed 10th placing, even behind Malaysian team Le Tua's Anuar Manan.
"I must thank my teammates for today's (yesterday) win. It wasn't any easier than the first one, but they did the work and let me go at the right moment," said 27-year old Loddo, who brought his tally to three stage wins in two races after winning the first stage of the Vuelta Tachira in Venezuela two weeks ago and the first stage of LTdL in Langkawi last Friday.A horrific pile-up in the final 25 metres of the stage as the bunch scrambled for the finish took out Francaise des Jeux's Lilian Jegou and Azad University's Amir Zargari. 
Frenchman Jegou was rushed to the hospital and was found to have suffered a hairline fracture inhis wrist, while Zargari is out with a hip injury, bringing to 10 the number of casualties in the race thus far.
Frenchman Jegou was rushed to the hospital and was found to have suffered a hairline fracture inhis wrist, while Zargari is out with a hip injury, bringing to 10 the number of casualties in the race thus far.
Nevertheless, the yellow jersey remained on the back of Credit Agricole's Anthony Charteau, whose team did most of the pacing work in the first three quarters of the stage that kept the attacks at bay. Charteau said the main objective of the team is now to keep the jersey until the eighth stage in Genting Highlands on Friday.Loddo's win meant he wrested the green jersey as the points classification leader from Richeze, while the blue Asian classification leader's jersey changed hands from Skil-Shimano's Yokihiro Doi to Giant Asia's Hossein Askari after the Iranian took a three-second time bonus by winning the first intermediate sprint at the 49.6km point in Felda Ciku.But Askari only leads the Asian classification by a mere one second.Another bunch sprint finish is expected when the peloton heads through a flat 167km fifth stage from Kota Baru to Kuala Terengganu today.
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