The upcoming Speedy Tour d’ Indonesia cycling championship, which runs from Oct. 2-13, won’t be graced by many of the country’s top road racers, including Tonton Susanto and Ryan Ariehaan, as they will be focusing on their final preparations for the 26th Southeast Asian Games in November.
The tour, sanctioned by the world cycling governing body UCI, takes place only a month before the SEA Games, which runs from November 11-22 in Palembang and Jakarta.
The Indonesian cycling team has set its sights to double the gold medals they won at the 2009 SEA Games
in Laos.
“Our road race squad in the team-time-trial and the individual-time-trial events is spear-headed by mainly Tonton and Ryan. Thus, we prefer to have them focus on the final preparations for the SEA Games,” Indonesian Cycling Association’s (ISSI) athlete development head Wahyudi Hidayat said on the sidelines of Monday’s official announcement of the Speedy Tour d’Indonesia (TDI).
Apart from Tonton and Ryan, 15 other national cyclists might not participate in the US$125,000 road race and will focus on preparing for the SEA Games instead.
They are: Harry Fitrianto, Agung Alisyahbana, Projo Waseso, Robin Manullang, Usman Ali, Rastra Patria, Erwin Jaya, Dadi Suryadi, Fatahillah, Rully F Ibnu, Parno, Adi Sukardi, Budi Santoso and Kristanto Nugroho.
“We don’t want to mess around with our main goal: To win as many golds as possible at the SEA Games. So, there should not be two performance peaks within one month,” said Wahyudi.
As a road-race cycling teams usually consists of cyclists with different roles, including chasers whose main task is to catch the leading group, the climbers, and the sprinters (or finishers), Wahyudi said that only the national team chasers might compete in the Tour.
“One or two cyclists who are chasers for the team may compete, but not all,” said Wahyudi, citing Parno, Rastra, Robin, Rully and Dadi.
Several changes have been made to the tour from last year, in part to ensure that the cyclists are given sufficient recovery time and safety throughout the 10-stage TDI.
The time-trial opening stage in Jakarta and closing stage in Renon, Bali, are modified into circuit races. The fifth stage, which last year was the longest at 217.4 kilometers, stretching from Semarang to Yogyakarta to Surakarta, has been shortened to 144.5 kilometers stretching from Semarang to Surakarta to Tawangmangu.
The TDI will pass Jakarta, Bandung, Ciawi, Ciamis, Kuningan, Cirebon, Tegal, Semarang, Surakarta, Pacitan, Madiun, Nganjuk, Surabaya, Probolinggo, Situbondo, Banyuwangi, Gilimanuk, Singaraja, Kintamani and Renon in Bali.
Ten foreign teams, including teams from Iran, Great Britain, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, China, Taiwan, Australia, Netherlands and the Philippines, as well as 10 more national teams have been invited to participate in the tour.
