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Kazakhstan’s Andrey Mizurov made history last month by becoming the first Asian rider to win the Tour of Qinghai Lake, in China.
The eight edition of the hors category Tour of Qinghai Lake took place from July 17th – 26th. Thirty-six-year-old Mizurov, riding for the Iranian team Tabriz Petrochemical, finished the nine stages with a 1m36 lead over teammate Ghader Mizbani Iranagh, who leads the UCI Asia Tour rankings.
The team’s one-two finish moved Tabriz Petrochemical a notch closer to UCI Asia Tour team rankings leaders Doha Team, of Qatar.
Former Asian Time Trial Champion Mizurov seized the yellow jersey right from the opening 4.8 kilometre prologue time trial in Huzhou. He held a slim seven seconds advantage over Trek-Marco Polo's local hope Li Fuyu, but never showed any signs of giving up his jersey over the remaining nine stages.
More history was made in the first stage of the race, when 22-year old Wu Shengjun launched an attack just six kilometres into the 171km stage that started in his hometown of Xining. Shengiun held this lead all the way to the finish in Tongren to become the first ever Chinese rider to win a stage in this race.
Mizbani Iranagh registered two stage victories and the mountains classification to consolidate his lead in the individual UCI Asia Tour rankings. Radoslav Rogina, of Croatian team Loborika, took the points classification – the only title still up for grabs after Tabriz Petrochemical’s domination: they also took the teams title, and Mizurov logically victorious in the Asian riders' classification was also Mizurov's.
After the Tour of Qinghai Lake action continued in Malaysia with the Perlis Open, which returned to the calendar as a 2.2 class event after an absence of six years.
The revived three-day event, from July 28th to 30th, saw Malaysian rider Anuar Manan of Iran's Azad University Cycling Team win the first stage in a final sprint between five riders in a breakaway group. Indonesia's Herwin Jaya, of the Polygon-Sweet Nice team, won the second stage, while the final stage went to Uzbekistan's Vladimir Tuychiev.
Photo : Tour of Qinghai Lake (China)
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