Russians confirm Le Tour entry

22/01/1999

THE Russians are coming for Le Tour de Langkawi. And their star attraction
is Alexei Markov, last year's silver medallist at the world track
championships in France.
Tour organisers First Cartel confirmed this yesterday after receicing
the Russians' team list.
There was initial fears that Russia would not join the Tour.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) rank the Russians eighth in their
list followed by Denmark, Kazakhstan and Australia in ninth, 11th and 12th
places respectively.
The other teams who have confirmed their entries are Britain (ranked
19), New Zealand (27), South Africa (29), Ireland (50), Canada (28), Japan
(40), China (67) and Philippines (30).
Markov, 21, has had a string of top-three finishes on the world circuit
in the past few years and his strong starts would definitely place the
Russians among the favourites.
Malaysia are currently ranked 69th by the UCI based on results at last
year's Le Tour, the Tour of Taiwan, Tour of Philippines, Tour of Morocco
and Tour of Japan.
While the European teams will be battling for the overall title,
Malaysia will vie for the East Asian trophy, which is about 20 per cent of
the total prize money of RM1.5 million in the upgraded Tour starting with
a time trial in Langkawi on Feb 3.
Among Malaysia's main rivals for the Trophy are China, Philippines,
Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.
Malaysia were neck-and-neck with the Filipinos and Chinese throughout
the last Tour but dropped back in the final stages of the race.
Italy's Mapei Quick Step will be the first team to arrive from Europe on
Wednesday to acclimatise.
Most of the other European teams are also scheduled to arrive by Jan 30.
The Russian team: Alexei Markov, Vladislav Borissov, Serguei Klimov,
Vladimir Karpets, Soultan Allakhiarov, Dmitri Koudriavtsev.
(END)