2008 Tour de Taiwan Stage 1: A triple-crown honor for Kam-po Wong

March 10, 2008

2008 Tour de Taiwan, with 7 different divisions and 8 stages, started yesterday at Love River of Kaohsiung City as its first stage. Not only a site event named "Walking in the Love River for World Games 2009" (in Chinese: 愛河健走，世運加油) was held to support the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung City, but also a damn hot weather challenged for cyclists' physical strength.

There were only 7 stages at Tour de Taiwan in past years before 2007, but before the launch of Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall and the merely close of 2009 World Games, we [the Chinese Taipei Cycling Association] do the best promotion and expand its scale to enroll the TWTC Nangang Stage and integrate the Taipei Cycle for the best promotion of bicycle industry.

In the starting of the 3rd lap, there was a sudden blow sound near the 50m flag. According to some witnesses, a cyclist from Health Net Pro Cycling Team was forced to quit this race because his tire blew suddenly due to a damn hot weather and the temperature of the race lane progressively rose up.

By the way of this race, not every cyclist could get rid off the chasing groups until some 5 cyclists suddenly get rid off them to become the leading group. Finally, Kam-po Wong reverse this condition in the final lap and won the champion of this stage. Indirectly, he also won the Asian and general leading champion in this stage.

In the After Race Media Interview, Wikinews Reporter Rico Shen questioned about his reversal in this stage and the future challenges for next 7 stages, Wong said: In fact, I and my teammates don't be forced to chase the final champion of this race [Tour de Taiwan]. Otherwise, our (Hong Kong's) team goal is to do the best in every stage to win the stage champion because it's not worthy for us to help anyone get the final (yellow jersey) champion by sacrificing my teammates. As you know, the 1st stage is just ended, the actual strength between every cyclists were too close, so we keep in a relax mind to complete every stage in this race.

Coincidentally, before the racing, a team member of Jet Fuel Coffee Cycling Team from Canada said to Wikinews: We participate in this Tour de Taiwan first time but not to consider the qualification of 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing because we are not like others who have a dream to join the Olympics, Rather than this, I hope this participation can gain some significant experiences from Taiwan because the physical condition were different for every cyclist.