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SUBWAY® Pro Cycling Team makes strong start at Tour de Korea

enthuse

Saturday 16 April 2011, 11:33AM

By enthuse

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Paul Odlin hopes to go one place high in this years Le Race
Paul Odlin hopes to go one place high in this years Le Race Credit: www.subwaycycling.co.nz

The SUBWAY® Pro Cycling Team made a strong start yesterday to its second international event of the year, the Tour de Korea.

After the first 108 kilometre stage SUBWAY® Pro Cycling’s Paul Oldin is lying second in the sprint competition after managing to make the front bunch with teammate Westley Gough.

SUBWAY® Pro Cycling General Manger Hayden Godfrey said the stage started with a “hot pace and lots of crashes as to be expected with all the fresh riders and nerves.”

“The boys managed to avoid all the carnage and get Paul (oldin) and Wes (Gough) into the front group over the big climb of the day. Paul then positioned himself well at the lone sprint points of the day and managed to finish second which was a great result.”

Oldin said the first day was “easy until the hills, then it got hard, very hard. I blew up a bit on the main climb of the day and was the last person to get onto the front group managing to jump across on the descent.”

“I then attacked just before sprint ace but didn’t manage to get across to the sole leader but was happy to pick up second in the sprint ace competition. Once that was secured I sat up and rolled in with the bunch of five. I was hammered but I’m looking forward to today.”

Godfrey said the team was “all fit and healthy” and was looking forward to today’s 213 kilometre stage which was the longest of the Tour.

SUBWAY® Pro Cycling Manager Graeme Millar said he was happy with the teams result from the first days racing.

“It’s an excellent start in the Green Jersey competition with Paul second and having both Paul and Wes in GC (general classification) contention after the first day is a great sign.”

The tour is raced over 10 days and 1,335 kilometres and features national teams from Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Korea and Uzbekistan and various UCI Continental teams including last year’s winning team, Jelly Belly, from the United States.