UCI Asia Tour: Aymen Ben Hassine moves into the lead

Tunisian rider Aymen Ben Hassine (Doha Team) took the lead in the UCI Asia Tour in January after an explosive month of racing. In fact, it was a month of resounding success for Qatar's Doha Team: Ben Hassine and Algerian teammate Abdelbaset Hannachi occupy the top two spots in the individual rankings, while Doha leads the team rankings with 514.66 points, a mammoth 425.66 points ahead of second placed South African team MTN. The UCI Asia Tour’s previous leader, Russia’s Boris Shpilevsky, has signed with UCI ProTeam Fuji-Servetto, and thus bows out of the competition for the continental title.
Two victories for Hassine
Hassine, the latest sensation on the Asia circuit, cruised to a double victory in the United Arab Emirates in January. First of all, he took victory in the Vice President Cup in Dubai on January 23. He beat Hannachi in a two-way sprint to the finish after a successful breakaway that saw the two teammates finish three minutes ahead of the rest of the pack. As an added bonus, Doha Team's Syrian rider Omar Hasanin finished just ahead of another teammate Rafa Chtioui, of Tunisia, in the bunch sprint to give their team a sweep of the top four places. That performance seemed to set the precedent for the Emirates Cup the next day, where the Doha Team repeated the sweep of the top four places: In a four-way sprint, Ben Hassine once again edged out Hannachi, with Hasanin taking third spot and their Algerian teammate Abdelmalek Madani finishing fourth.
Tour de Langkawi
This sets the tone for an interesting start to February when the peloton heads to Malaysia for one of the continent's biggest races, the hors class Tour de Langkawi. Here, the best in Asia will be pitted against European ProTour and Professional Continental teams. The battle for the UCI Asia Tour individual leadership takes centre stage in Le Tour de Langkawi, February 9-15, with seven of the riders occupying the top 10 positions in the rankings set to start the race. Ben Hassine, Hannachi and Hasanin, who is in sixth spot, will do battle with the likes of South Africa's Christoff Van Heerden, who is in third spot and will be riding for his national team in Le Tour de Langkawi. Iran's Ghader Mizbani, in fifth spot, will lead a strong Iranian national team that includes the 2007-2008 UCI Asia Tour overall winner Hossein Askari. China's national team will feature their latest star Xu Gang (8th), while Kazakhstan's national team will bank on a good performance from their ninth ranked rider Alexey Lyalko.

From: http://www.uci.ch

Training Camp in South Africa for World Cycling Centre trainees

Six road cycling trainees from the World Cycling Centre (WCC) in Aigle, Switzeraland, are preparing their European season in the more clement climate of South Africa. Following on from the success of the first training camp of its kind to be held outside Europe in February 2008, the six WCC athletes are once again training alongside young cyclists from the International Cycling Centre’s (UCI) Continental Centre in Potchefstroom. UCI Coach Sébastien Duclos is accompanying the athletes on the training camp, which has once again been organized in collaboration with Jean-Pierre and Theresia Van Zyl, from the UCI’s African Continental Centre.
As well as training with the African athletes, the WCC trainees will compete in four one-day races in the Johannesburg region. In the first of these, the Berg en Dale Classic, trainee Dalivier Ospina (Columbia), finished in an impressive fourth place, with two other trainees, Temur Mukhamedov (UZB) and Sean Patrick Downey (IRL) taking the 8th and 9th places respectively. Their next challenge is the Emperors Classic on Sunday February 8th. This year’s training camp runs from January 21st – March 5th. One of the aims is to gain selection for the UCI Under-23 Nation Cup – open to national teams and a WCC mixed team. The 2009 UCI Under-23 Nations Cup includes seven races, starting with the Grand Prix du Portugal from March 27th – 29th and finishing with the Tour de l’Avenir, in France, in September. The WCC trainees in South Africa are Andrei Krasilnikau (Belarus) Dalivier Ospina (Columbia), Gabor Fejes (Hungary) Sergiu Cioban (Republic of Moldova), Temur Mukhamedov (Uzbekistan) and Sean Downey (Ireland).

From: http://www.uci.ch