Tour of Hainan - 2.1 - 2.1

China, November 11-19, 2008

2007 results Stage List Preview Start List Past winners

The Stages

Prologue - November 11: Sanya City prologue, 3 km
Stage 1 - November 12: Sanya - Xinglong, 163.6 km
Stage 2 - November 13: Xinglong - Wenchang, 159.4 km
Stage 3 - November 14: Wenchang - Haikou, 150.7 km
Stage 4 - November 15: Haikou - Chengmai, 163.5 km
Stage 5 - November 16: Chengmai - Danzhou, 171.2 km
Stage 6 - November 17: Danzhou - Changjiang, 135.6 km
Stage 7 - November 18: Changjiang - Wuzhishan, 210.6 km
Stage 8 - November 19: Wuzhishan - Sanya, 102.4 km

Tour of Hainan spices up Asian season

By Steve Thomas, with assistance from Yanyong Charoenpong

As the main European and US pro race seasons fades into the mud of cyclo-cross and the smoke of the Six Days, things are hotting up some in the southern hemisphere and also around the tropical fringes of Southeast Asia, starting in earnest this week with the Tour of Okinawa (Japan's tropical island) and the Tour of Hainan in southern China.

The two-day Okinawa race is a popular season ending for the Japanese road season, with many of the European based Japanese teams also marking the end of their seasons with the event. This year's two-day tour was won by Mietan Hompo rider Yukiya Arashiro.

The island of Hainan is China's only tropical province, and is popular not only with sun seeking tourists but also with many of the country's leading athletes, who come here to train while other parts of the republic deal with the chilly dilemmas of winter.

This year's Tour of Hainan race runs from the 11-18th November, and covers 1,248 kilometres through its prologue and eight stages. The island is not seriously hilly, but the last three stages of the race do contain a number of category two, and one first category climb – although they are not severe enough to make major differences to the overall GC. This usually means that fast racing and small time differences in this UCI 2.1 ranked Asian Tour event, which is always popular with the riders.

This year's event has a strong line up of Asian and European Continental teams, and several national teams. Amongst the likely protagonists are Giant Asia's David McCann and Alex Courts, Sparkasse's Eric Baumann, Marco Polo's Jai Crawford, Meitan Hompo's Shinichi Fukushima and Takashi Miyazawa, and the ever powerful leading Asian team of Tabriz Petrochemical from Iran, who's star riders Hossein Askhari (defending UCI Asian Tour Champion) and Ghadir Mizbani are well known for their climbing skills. Strong teams from Denmark, Switzerland, Russia and Kazakhstan should also make the racing tough and open.

Last years race was won by Poland's Robert Radoz, who is not defending his title this year.

Start list

Tabriz Petrochemical Team                 Meitan Hompo GDR
 
1 Ghader Mizbani Iranagh (IRI)            11 Miyataka Shimizu (Jpn)
2 Hossein Askari (IRI)                    12 Takashi Miyazawa (Jpn)
3 Amir Zargari (IRI)                      13 Masaaki Kikuchi (Jpn)
4                                         14 Nariyuki Masuda (Jpn)
5 Hossein Jahanbanian (IRI)               15 Shinichi Fukushima (Jpn)
6 Mehdi Faridi (IRI)                      16 Yin-Chih Wang (Tpe)
7 Vahid Ghaffari (IRI)                    17
 
Team Sparkasse                            Trek Marco Polo
 
21                                        31 Jai Crawford (Aus)
22 Richard Faltus (Cze)                   32 Serguei Koudentsov (Rus)
23                                        33 Yilin Liu (Chn)
24 Philipp Mamos (Ger)                    34 Fuyu Li (Chn)
25 Dirk Müller (Ger)                      35 Sea Keong Loh (Mas)
26 Andreas Schillinger (Ger)              36 Feng Han (Chn)
27 Lars Wackernagel (Ger)                 37 Yan Dong Xing (Chn)
 
Giant Asia Racing Team                    Cosmote Kastro
 
41 Kuei Shiang Peng (Tpe)                 51 Henrik Wolter (Ger)
42 Jui Lung Lin (Tpe)                     52 Lars Pria (Rom)
43 Chia Hung Yang (Tpe)                   53 Christoph Springer (Ger)
44 David McCann (Irl)                     54
45 Alex Coutts (GBr)                      55 Stavros Papadimitrakis (Gre)
46 Erik Hoffmann (Ger)                    56 Thomas Rodios (Gre)
47 Stefan Löffler (Ger)                   57 Jiri Skrobanek (Cze)
 
Jelly Belly                               Polygon Sweet Nice
 
61 Matt Rice (Aus)                        71 Hari Fitrianto (Ina)
62 Kiel Reijnen (USA)                     72 Herwin Jaya (Ina)
63 Bradley Huff (USA)                     73 Antonius Christopher-Tjondrokusumo (Ina)
64 Nicholas Reistad (USA)                 74 Artem Timofeev (Rus)
65 Bernard Van Ulden (USA)                75
66                                        76
67                                        77
 
Arbö KTM Junkers                          Panasonic
 
81 Jan Barta (Cze)                        91 Peter John Herzig (Aus)
82 Hannes Grundlinger (Aut)               92 Chris Jory (Aus)
83 Josef Kugler (Aut)                     93 Dale Scarfe (Aus)
84 Petr Lechner (Cze)                     94 Timothy Guy (Aus)
85 Stefan Poll (Aut)                      95 Luke Cridland (Aus)
86 Lukas Winter (Aut)                     96 Shaun Morris (Aus)
87                                        97 Kris Koke (Aus)
 
Polish National Team                      Russian National Team
 
101 Mariusz Witecki (Pol)                 111 Sergey Firsanov (Rus)
102 Blazej Janiaczyk (Pol)                112 Boris Shpilevsky (Rus)
103 Pawel Cieslik (Pol)                   113 Anton Afonin (Rus)
104 Jacek Morajko (Pol)                   114 Igor Boev (Rus)
105 Poiotr Osinski (Pol)                  115 Oleg Usanin (Rus)
106 Mateusz Taciak (Pol)                  116 Evgeny Bakhin (Rus)
107 Wojciech Dybel (Pol)                  117 Vadim Maslennikov (Rus)
 
Ukrainian National Team                   Danish National Team
 
121 Mykhailo Kononenko (Ukr)              131 Michael Christensen (Den)
122 Oleksandr Polyvoda (Ukr)              132 Daniel Kreutzfeldt (Den)
123 Sergiy Matveev (Ukr)                  133 Mads Rydicher (Den)
124 Oleksandr Nykolenko (Ukr)             134 Philip Nielsen (Den)
125 Yuri Metlushenko (Ukr)                135 Jacob Nielsen (Den)
126 Volodymyr Starchyk (Ukr)              136 Kim Marius (Den)
127 Anatoliy Pakhutsov (Ukr)              137 Martin Lollesgaard (Den)
 
Swiss National Team                       Kazakhstani National Team
 
141 Steve Zampieri (Swi)                  151 Valeriy Dmitriyev (Kaz)
142 Peter Andres (Swi)                    152 Valentin Iglinskiy (Kaz)
143 Benjamin Baumgartner (Swi)            153 Sergey Renev (Kaz)
144 Charles Xavier (Swi)                  154 Yevgeniy Sladkov (Kaz)
145 Fabian Wolf (Swi)                     155 Alexsandr Dyachenko (Kaz)
146 Loic Muhlemann (Swi)                  156 Dmitriy Gruzdev (Kaz)
147 Christian Rocha (Swi)                 157 Ruslan Tleubayev (Kaz)
 
Malaysia                                  Hongta Hong Kong
 
161 Zainal Mohammed Nor Rizuaht (Mas)     171 Chun Hing Chan (HKg)
162 Hassan Suhardi (Mas)                  172 Chi Shek Chui (HKg)
163 Mohammed Zamri Saleh (Mas)            173 Siu Wai Ko (HKg)
164 Anuar Manan (Mas)                     174 Kin San Wu (HKg)
165                                       175 Ronald Yin Hon Yeung (HKg)
166 Ahmad Haidar Anuawar (Mas)            176 Kwok Ho Ting (HKg)
167                                       177
 
Chinese Taipei                            Chinese National Team
 
181 Hsin Hua Huang (Tpe)                  191 Jianhua Ji (Chn)
182 Cheng Yen Chen (Tpe)                  192 Jin Long (Chn)
183 Wei Chieh Liu (Tpe)                   193 Cheng Ji (Chn)
184 Shuai Chun Chiang (Tpe)               194 Rongxi Zou (Chn)
185 Chun Kai Feng (Tpe)                   195 Baoqing Song (Chn)
186 Kuan Hua Lai (Tpe)                    196 Guo Hui (Chn)
187 Fan Hsin Chu (Tpe)                    197 Xitao Ji (Chn)

Past winners

2007 Robert Radosz (Pol) Intel - Action 
2006 Sergey Kolesnikov (Rus) Omnibike Dynamo Moscow
 
Past winners by Mario Stiehl, www.world-of-cycling.com