South Korean cyclist Park Sung-baek won the first stage of Tour de Taiwan yesterday amid a field of 102 competitors.
Park, who is part of the South Korea national team, finished first in the 60km race around Taipei City Hall in a time of 1 hour, 21 minutes, 39 seconds.
“I made sure I did not lose any time and avoided all the crashes and all that, and just took it easy because it’s a long tour ahead,” said Park, who rides for the Drapac Professional Cycling Team.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Adam Phelan of Australia, who won the prologue on Saturday, finished 15th.
The 19-year-old Australian was able to take the yellow jersey for the best individual in the overall classification and hold the white jersey for best under-23 rider for the second straight day, with an aggregate time of 1 hour, 24 minutes, 22 seconds.
“I was happy to hold the jersey today. We do a lot of crits [criterium] in Australia, so we should be able to just keep it up there,” Phelan said in an interview after the race.
The green jersey for overall leader of the points category went to South Korean Jang Chan-jae, who finished among the top three in the three sprints, earning a total of 11 points.
Junya Sano of Japan, who rides with an Italian team and placed eighth overall, won the best Asian rider title in 1 hour, 24 minutes, 27 seconds.
Wu Po-hung of Senter-Merida was the first Taiwanese cyclist to cross the finish line in 12th place.
Hong Kong’s Wong Kam-po, the winner of the men’s cycling event at last year’s Asian Games, finished 14th.
Ireland’s David McCann, who wore the yellow jersey throughout all of last year’s Tour de Taiwan, finished in 23rd place.
Eighteen teams with cyclists from 22 countries competed in the opening stage of the round-the-nation race, which is scheduled to run through March 28.
A total of 101 cyclists will compete in the next stage in New Taipei City today.
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