Tour of Qinghai Lake 2012

[Michele]

First stage and a surprise winner get it.

Full startlist

Official Website

 

[RHRH19861986]

This is Fabian Schnaidt. He´s in his first U23 year and already won 3 UCI races by now, and Quinhai is even HC.

His coach and manager is Stefan Schumacher´s coach and manager, Hartmut Täumler.

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

stage 3:

1 71 IRI19880124 ALIZADEH Hossein TPT 3:34:24 -12/-- --
2 163 COL19811127 PEDRAZA MORALES Walter Fernando EPM -- -6/-- --
3 26 RUS19820703 FIRSANOV Sergey RVL -- -4/-- --
4 32 CHN19860213 JIAO Pengda CSS -- -- --
5 13 ESP19780313 RAMIREZ ABEJA Javier ACG -- -- --
6 161 COL19810409 BAEZ ALVAREZ Geovanny Manuel EPM -- -3/-- --
7 162 COL19911016 GOMEZ PINEDA Javier Eduardo EPM -- -- --
8 37 AUS19830803 WURF Cameron CSS -- -- --
9 72 IRI19750323 ASKARI Hossein TPT -- -- --
10 167 COL19900118 BELTRAN SUAREZ Edward Alexander EPM -- -- --
11 81 COL19730604 NINO CORREDOR Victor AZC -- -- --
12 126 KAZ19730316 MIZUROV Andrey AMO -- -- --
13 213 CHN19870618 WU Shengjun TYD 3:34:39 -1/-- +15

Those will contend the GC, it seems. EPM's back after a terrible Vuelta Colombia, but the Iranians - especially young talent Alizadeh - fight back.

 

[Michele]

Also the experienced Askari in there without forgetting also Mizurov althought Tabriz and EPM might play out with their numbers.

 

[Michele]

A victory for Andalucia yesterday althought "helped" by a big crash in the last 500meters.

 

[Fetisoff]

Luka Mezgec takes his 3rd stage victory

Who wants to make a guess, whether he's gonna take more stages in Qinghai than Cav/Sagan at the TDF?

 

[Michele]

2 days ago Guardini finally showed some good legs by ending 2nd, and yesterday won (waiting for pictures).

 

[WindLessBreeze]

Epm/une

2do overall so far, that's all there is to it

 

[daveinzambia]

Updates on the race so far and some background on some of the guys taking part here. Cam on cycling IQ is probably the best source around for Asian racing.

http://cyclingiq.com/

 

[daveinzambia]

2 days ago Guardini finally showed some good legs by ending 2nd, and yesterday won (waiting for pictures).

He won again on stage 10. in some interviews he was really struggling with the high altitude early on, now they have dropped down a bit he is finding his legs again. Got to remember at some points on this course there is something crazy like 40% less oxygen in the air

 

[daveinzambia]

2do overall so far, that's all there is to it

yeah looks like Alvarez grabbed a sneaky 3 seconds on the intermediate sprint to move from 4th to second.

On stage 10 Wurf grabbed a couple back to move to 3rd

TPT and Alizadeh look too strong for now. expect CSS to have a go (especially as if you look in cycling IQ article you will see Wurf is under a lot of pressure to get a result)

great to see TPT back up and racing after their issues earlier in the year

 

[daveinzambia]

Just heard that a Slovenian won stage 11 so assuming it was another win for Mezgec.

also heard there was a bad crash on the stage involving rider and motorbike with both going to hospital. these Asian races really need to sort out their marshalls. they have the experience in Malaysia and Japan but need to get that out to other races

 

[daveinzambia]

Result confirmed

1. Mezgec (Sava)
2. Giraud (La Pommes Marseille)
3. Keough (United Healthcare)

 

[daveinzambia]

oh not sure if has been posted here but video highlights for all the stages can be found here

http://www.qqride.com/video/index.php/video/show

you can try a bit of google translate or just guess from the pictures. stages are in reverse order so most recent first. They are really nice videos, well shot and edited, some nice scenery and you can include good music in your highlights when you do not need to worry about copyright infringement

 

[daveinzambia]

and some really beautiful photographs from Mike Murano on the official site
http://www.tdql.cn/english/photos/photo_20129.htm

some really amazing scenery there. maybe not as spectacular as Sibiu was but really worth digging through those albums