Nurhayati pedals to golden clean sweep

By Johannes K. Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's Nurhayati has crowned herself the region's cycling queen by winning all five events in which she competed in the Games.

Yesterday, she completed her haul by winning the individual road race, a tiring 70-km slog around the Subang ringroad, in 2:08.22.

The silver medal was grabbed by Vietnam's Nguyen Thi Tyong Pung, who was 10 seconds slower, and the bronze went to Thailand's Banna Champoo, who finished one second further adrift .

Match referee Baharuddin told The Jakarta Post: "The three cyclists competed tightly with each other. They were only separated by a few meters when they crossed the finish lines," Baharuddin said.

Nurhayati had won all the previous four women's competitions: points race, 20-km individual time trial, 3,000m individual pursuit and the sprint.

Her five gold-medal haul makes her the most successful female Indonesian athlete competing in the 19th SEA Games.

The Indonesian cycling camp also celebrated yesterday the gold earned by Tonton Susanto -- his second of the Games -- in the men's individual road race.

Tonton, who had won the 40-kilometer individual time trial, finished the grueling 175-km race from Jakarta to the Tangkuban Perahu mountain in West Java in five hours, six minutes and eight seconds, 41 seconds ahead of runner up Seong Hong Tsen from Malaysia, who was the gold medalist in the SEA Games in Chiang Mai two years ago.

Tonton failed to get any medals in the individual road race in Chiang Mai.

Philippine national champion Victor Espiritu came third in 5:08.15.

The race started at 8 a.m at the Senayan sports complex, went on to the Cikampek highway, through the town of Subang and ended at the foot of Tangkuban Perahu, just outside Bandung.

Tonton lagged behind the leaders for most of the race and then took the lead with two kilometers to go.

Nurhayati and Tonton's victories yesterday took Indonesia's cycling medal tally to 10 of the 12 golds already contested and the Indonesian camp is now looking forward to taking the majority of the remaining four golds on offer today and tomorrow in Subang.

The four gold medals are in the cross-country and downhill mountain biking events for men and women. This is the first time the sport has been contested in the SEA Games.