Tour de Langkawi

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Le Tour de Langkawi participants passing through Kuala Selangor
Le Tour de Langkawi
Local name	Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL)
Region	Peninsular Malaysia
Date	Late January and/or early February
Type	Stage Race
Managing Director	Alan Rushton
History
First edition	1996
Number of editions	12 (as of 2007)
First winner	Damian McDonald (1996)
Most wins	Paolo Lanfranchi (2)
Latest winner	Anthony Charteau (2007)
Most career Yellow Jerseys	?
Most career stage wins	Graeme Brown

Le Tour de Langkawi (French for "Tour of Langkawi") is an annual cycling race which is held in Malaysia. The name of the event comes from the starting point of the first few editions, in Langkawi, Kedah, although some later editions did not include Langkawi in the race at all. The race is part of the UCI Asia Tour.

Contents 1 History 2 Famous stages 3 Jersey colours 4 Past winners 5 Difficulties 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

The race was created by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad. It was held for the first time in 1996 with twelve stages and a prologue stage where the classification and time do not count. However, under the UCI's request, the tour was trimmed to ten stages starting with the 2002 tour.

In 2004, the existing owner of this race, Datuk Wan Lokman Dato Wan Ibrahim, a cousin of former Prime Minister, Tun Mahtir Mohamad sold the entire Tour to Simon Donnellan aka Imran Abdullah. The 2005 race was beset with financial problems, with some riders not receiving prize money and large contractors not being paid. With this dark cloud hanging over it and impending legal action, the 2006 race was run on a smaller scale. There have been allegations of fraud and mismanagement, but the accusers have, after many months, still failed to produce any evidence that this is the case apart from pointing to the lack of funds for creditors. In Late 2006 the Malaysian government resolved some of the outstanding debts in order to preserve the future of the event. Responsibility for the running of the race was given to the Malaysian National Cycling Federation (MNCF). In the week preceding the 2007 race, the former organizers, First Cartel were legally wound up in the Malaysian High Court. This leaves the existing creditors in an uncertain position. Simon , MD of First Cartel, now has no further interest in the race, although there remains some dispute over the ownership of the event's name. Simon Donnellan was also banned from being within 100m metres of the 2007 race, however he was regularly spotted on the race acting as if nothing had happened.

There have been two incidents that caused stage cancellation. First it occurred in the first stage of the 2004 edition with police officials mistakenly opening the way for public vehicles onto the race track while the race was still ongoing to decide the winner of the first stage. After negotiations between the riders, they decided to neutralise the stage.

The final stage of the 2006 competition was cancelled with ten laps remaining due to heavy rain. Because of deteriorating road conditions, the race organisers decided to abandon the stage and declared Angel Vallejo as winner because he was leading at the time of the cancellation.

[edit] Famous stages

The tour is held across Peninsular Malaysia and does not include the islands. In 1997, the tour began across the sea in Sabah and continued through neighbouring Sarawak before moving to the mainland. Trouble with flights to the island caused complaints from the riders and forced the unofficialization of the second and third stages. ^[1]

Genting Highlands and Dataran Merdeka of Kuala Lumpur are the two famous stages that have appeared in every edition of the race. Genting Highlands is a famous mountain stage appeared in the penultimate stage of the race before unpredictably started in 2005, the toughest stages of the tour, rider need a lot of stamina in the last five kilometres of the climb.

Dataran Merdeka is the final stage of the tour as a circuit race. However, the winner of the tour would usually be decided before this stage even begins.

[edit] Jersey colours

Throughout its race history, varying colours of jerseys have been awarded to the current leader and overall winner of several of the race's classifications.

General Classification

Yellow Jersey, which is fashioned after the maillot jaune worn by the overall leader and final winner in the Tour de France, despite the fact that the sponsoring company is Telekom Malaysia, which does not have yellow in its logo or marketing. However, 2006 marked the end of Telekom Malaysia as tile sponsor since 2001, Proton came as replacement as jersey sponsor, while the traditional color is not change, the jersey also adding blue color as stripe to match the logo.

Mountains Classification

White with Red Polka Dot Jersey, which is based upon the leader of the King of the Mountains in the Tour de France and selected by its sponsor, the Genting Group.

Sprint Classification

Blue Jersey, which is sponsored by Proton. Prior to 2004, Petronas sponsored the jersey as the Green Jersey but dropped its sponsorship when the stage race was branded as TM Le Tour de Langkawi. But 2007 marked the comeback of Petronas as the jersey sponsor, and it armend to green jersey again.

Best Asian Rider

Blue and White starting in 2007 and sponsored by Telekom Malaysia (the former title sponsor). Previous colors included the 2006 version of white, blue and red jersey sponsored by the Tourism Board of Malaysia and prior to that it was the blue and red jersey sponsored by Malaysian Airlines.

[edit] Past winners

Year	Winner	Team
1996	Damian McDonald	Giant-AIS
1997	Luca Scinto	MG-Technogym
1998	Gabrielle Missaglia	Mapei-Bricobi
1999	Paolo Lanfranchi	Mapei-Quickstep
2000	Chris Horner	Mercury Cycling Team
2001	Paolo Lanfranchi	Mapei-Quickstep
2002	Hernan Dario Munoz	Colombia-Selle Italia
2003	Tom Danielson	Saturn Cycling Team
2004	Freddy Gonzalez	Colombia-Selle Italia
2005	Ryan Cox	Team Barloworld
2006	David George	South Africa
2007	Anthony Charteau	Crédit Agricole

[edit] Difficulties

Because of the difficulties, it put the 2007 edition in doubt for temporary period until it is cleared by UCI. Several teams reported they had not received their prize money or some of the prize money. The South Africa team already insists that they only received for 2005 edition prize money and still owed for the 2006 edition, prepare for the event. ^[2] This issue has been raised for a year but still unsolved, although they are several other teams also in the same issue like Barloworld, American Pro Continental Team Navigators Insurance, Wismilak, Iran, Great Britain, Ireland and Japan. ^[3][4]

First Cartel (M) Sdn Bhd, the organiser, is responsible in this case and has struggled to rectify the situation while trying to repay a loan of RM 2.5 million taken out to buy out the previous owner, Datuk Wan Lokman. The event is reported to have amassed debts of RM2.3 million for television rights, and also some RM470,394 in failing to pay the winners of this year's race. The company has been able to to honour some but not all of the debts.

Unverified reports suggested that First Cartel (M) Sdn Bhd has been dropped organising the tour and the role taken over by the Youth and Sports Ministry, which prepared some RM2.9 million to bail out of this issue. ^[5]

More recent reports indicate that the event is the victim of a power struggle within the Malaysian National Cycling Federation which has led to bitter and false claims being made in the Malaysian Press, particularly the New Straits Times. The Malaysian government is reported to be unhappy with the feud and to be insisting that it be resolved in the interests of the future of the event. ^[6]

UCI recently put September 1, 2006 as deadline to solve out the problem, but two days before the end of deadline, the announcement made as the 2007 edition go ahead. ^[7] This is in spite of the the MNCF poor record at organising events such as the Jelajah Malaysia. ^[8]

The Events Group, which was involved 1998 to 2005, have been bought back to run the race for 2007 to help maintain the high standard of organisation that has been achieved. Alan Rushton from The Events Group has been employed under a directive from the UCI to involve personnel from the previously successful editions.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Website 2007
• TMLTdL 2006 complete photo collection
• Photo Gallery of The 2006 Edition of The Tour

Le Tour de Langkawi
1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007