Tabriz Petrochemical Cycling Team

With just three races remaining on the UCI Asia Tour 2009-2010 calendar, it now looks set to be a three-horse race, dominated by Iranians, for the overall individual title. Iranian team Tabriz Petrochemical looks to have an unassailable lead in the teams ranking, thanks in part to another overall victory:

Hossein Askari in the Tour of Qinghai Lake (CHN) from July 17th to 25th. Askari’s victory was a repeat performance of his Kazakh teammate Andrey Mizurov, who last year became the first ever Asian rider to take overall victory in the HC class Tour of Qinghai Lake. This year, Askari finished the challenging ninth edition of the race with a 44 seconds advantage over second-placed Croatian rider Radoslav Rogina, of the Loborika team. Current UCI Asia Tour individual rankings leader Mehdi Sohrabi added vital points in his bid to capture the title after winning two stages in the Tour of Qinghai Lake. Sohrabi is the only one of the three Tabriz Petrochemical riders atop the standings who has yet to emerge overall champion in the UCI Asia Tour series. Sohrabi leads the standings with 466.66 points, a narrow 41 points ahead of defending champion Askari. This means that it will be a close battle between the two during the final three races of the season - the Tour of Delhi in India on August 29, the Tour of China (September 10 – 20) and the Tour of Hokkaido in Japan (September 16 – 20.) Meanwhile their teammate Ghader Mizbani, the 2005-2006 Asia Tour champion, is in third at the start of August. However, with 113 points separating him from Askari, he is an outside contender for this season’s title. The month of July did not start too well for Tabriz Petrochemical as they saw Iranian rivals from the Azad University team bag a one-two finish in the Tour of Milad du Nour (July 7th - 11th) in their home country. Victory went to the promising 24-year old rider Ramin Mehrabani ahead of teammate Farshad Salehian. Tabriz's own promising 20-year old Arvin Moazemmi Godarzi finished third overall, his best career finish yet.

Link: www.uciasiatour.com