THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
A Langkawi Journal: Impey aims high; Fukushima looks ahead
Making the leap from top-flight amateur to ProTour neo pro is never easy. But throw in a continent’s worth of distance from cycling’s European epicenter and the task becomes exponentially harder. That’s the challenge that faces South African Daryl Impey, one of the top national team riders at this year’s Tour de Langkawi.
Through seven stages, the 22-year-old from Johannesburg has scored three top 10 finishes in the five bunch sprint finishes, and he is one of only two riders to sprint ahead of the race’s dominant force, four-time stage winner Alberto Loddo (Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni). On stage 2 Impey finished second behind Ceramiche Panaria’s Maximiliano Richeze, one spot ahead of Loddo.
Impey also had a strong showing in the lone climbing stage thus far in Malaysia, hanging with lead group late into the run up the Cameron Highlands. Impey eventually faded, finishing 68th, 12:02 behind stage 3 winner Anthony Charteau. But the solid ride represented what he calls a continuing transformation.
“It used to be nothing but the sprints for me, but last year my body changed a lot and I lost a lot of weight,” explained Impey Thursday morning at the stage 7 start in Kuantan. “I sort of found myself in the mountains as well. At last year’s Qinghai Lake stage race in China I got over the hors categorie climb and ended up sprinting for the stage win. I didn’t get it, but I’ve definitely improved a lot as a rider and turned into a bit of an all-rounder.”
The next logical step for Impey is a permanent place in Europe. It’s a move he tried once already, spending the 2005 season on a French amateur team based in Marseilles. But Impey struggled with the challenges of living in a foreign country.
“I had a pretty bad time in Europe,” admitted Impey who’s won South African national espoir championships in both the time trial and road race. “I just lost myself up there. It’s really hard to go to Europe by yourself and produce results for a French team. It’s not like if you get a little bit homesick you can fly back home like the Europeans can. So I came back to South Africa to try to find myself again.”
This year, besides doing spot duty with his country’s national team, Impey will ride for the Microsoft-MTN team. He’ll hit a mix of stage and one-day races in Africa, plus a few more overseas events, including another trip to China. His current contract is up at the end of this season and he hopes he can get back to Europe in 2008.
“I want to get back as soon as possible, just not with another amateur team,” he said. “I need to have a set-up where I’m going to get looked after a little more. I could see myself going right now, but I need to prove to other teams that I’m good enough. No one has approached me yet.”
But ask Impey whether he’d be a good risk, and the young rider doesn’t hesitate.
“Every year I see myself improving,” he continued. “The way I race now compared to the way I was when I raced in France before, there’s a big difference. If I can continue to improve like that, I think I’m up to racing anywhere. But you need the support. It’s hard to just jump into a foreign team. You need to have a little bit of time to get into the pace and lifestyle of things.”
Impey has one other piece of motivation. He picked up cycling from his father, who was a top cyclist in his own right. But Tony Impey never got the chance to take his talents overseas because of the sanctions put on South African athletes during the time of apartheid.
Race notes
It all comes down to Genting - With the brutal stage 8 run up the hors categorie Genting Highlands climb on tap Friday, it was clear Thursday that the lead players were saving themselves. That led to a stage win for Japanese pro Shinichi Fukushima, who became just the third Asian to win a stage in the 12-year history of the 10-day race in Malaysia.
But the historical ramifications of stage 7 were of little interest to the teams that will be gunning to unseat Credit Agricole’s Anthony Charteau from his place atop the overall standings.
Both Unibet.com and Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni have cards to play on the precipitous ascent that ends in Genting’s kitschy resort area. Spanish climber Luis Pesamontes, 5th at 4:43, and Sergey Kolesnikov (10th at 4:45) give Unibet two options. And you can expect the newest ProTour team to start the day by sending petite Venezuelan climber Jose Rujano up the road in search of the stage win. Rujano is more than 12 minutes down, so he likely won’t draw attention from Credit Agricole.
“Of course we believe in Rujano, but we also have some young riders,” said Unibet team director Michal Lafis. “With Sergey it’s hard to know. He was an amateur last year, but he’s a very strong rider. It was be interesting also for me to see what he does tomorrow. We have a lot of unknowns.”
Meanwhile, Serramenti team boss Gianni Savio was typically cavalier in assessing how the decisive day would go.
“Tomorrow we will attack,” said the always dapper Italian. “We have Walter Pedraza [3rd at 4:00] and Jose Serpa [12th at 4:48]. We will try to win on Genting and also go for the overall. In cycling anything can happen.”
As for America’s long representative in Southeast Asia, Team Slipstream is aiming to move into the top 10. Currently Michael Lange is 14th at 4:50, the same time gap as teammate Timmy Duggan, who sits 16th on the results sheet.
“I don’t think we’ll attack early,” predicted Slipstream director Johnny Weltz. “We just want to make it into the selection. We’ll try to help out making the selection. I think we should have both of them in the top 10. They are not kids anymore so the expectation is high.”
