2008 Tour de Taiwan Stage 8: A great ending for John Murphy

March 16, 2008 A 72-golden-hour race of 2008 Tour de Taiwan in the Taipei-Keelung metropolitan area came to an end after entering the Taipei Xinyi Shopping Area as the final stage today. Before the main race, the organizer, Chinese Taipei Cycling Association held "The 3rd Taipei Citizen Elimination Road Race" to examine the achievements of basic cycling promotion. Even though its racing scale is one third of the Taipei Stage (60 laps, 1 km/lap), but several local cycling clubs and senior cyclists participated in this promotional race.

Kuan-hua Lai, a cyclist from Giant Asia Racing Team, the current Taiwan leader of Tour de Taiwan, spoke to Wikinews Reporter Rico Shen before racing: "Since we [the Team] took the leading from Changhua County Stage until now, we were still be cautious of this current status because the competitors just lost behind within 15 seconds." And also, he commented about an "earlier suspension" incident in the same stage in 2007: "I didn't participate in this series last year. However, with several cyclists' actual strengths in several criterium stages, I think that the same incident won't take place again this year."

In the main race, due to a very close actual strength, not everyone can took the leading for a long-period especially in Asian cyclists' competition. As a result in the middle-end section, the main group extremity controlled the condition of this race. Finally, Marek Wesoły from Merida Europe Team won his second stage champion in this stage since he got former stage champion in Pingtung County. With the stage champion went to Wesoły, John Murphy firmly won the overall champion in this series after 8 stages' racing.

By the way, Kuan-hua Lai not only won the Taiwan Champion and was voted as the "Most Popular Taiwanese Cyclist", but also helped his team (Giant Asia Racing Team) to win the Team Champion in this series. After the race, He commented about this race: "Even though we got a great difference after we [the Team] got the lead from Changhua [stage], but we got a damn difficult situation because the competitors just lost behind within a small difference. Because of this issue, we cautiously chose some roads to do several attacks to keep the leading to the end."

And he also commented about the "DAMN" crash incident yesterday to Wikinews Reporter Rico Shen: "It's unable to prevent the crash. But mostly, cyclists without concentrations to a race [or a game] will bring on crash in a race. If a cyclist want to prevent a crash, a cyclist should focus on the race in any time and any where."

In another brief after race interview, John Murphy talked to Wikinews Reporter Rico Shen about this stage especially on the competition of yellow jersey: "Shawn Milne is a respectful competitor even though he was formerly in our [Health Net Pro Cycling] team, but he majorly ever threatened me since he got the 5th Stage Champion. After this, my current teammates did several attempts covering me to the end, and finally, it took a good effort for me. I really appreciated and thanked for my teammates' help."

Tour de Taiwan Taipei City Stage

 * Stage Champion: Marek Wesoły (Merida Europe)

Individual Classification

 * Asian Champion (Blue Jersey): Takashi Miyazawa (Team Meitan Hompo-GDR)
 * Taiwan Champion (White Jersey): Kuan-hua Lai (Giant Asia Racing Team)
 * Sprint Champion (Green Jersey): John Murphy (Health Net Pro Cycling Team)
 * Overall Champion (Yellow Jersey): John Murphy

Team Classification

 * 1) Giant Asia Racing Team
 * 2) Team Skil-Shimano
 * 3) Health Net Pro Cycling Team