Tonton grabs Asian title of Langkawi

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian cyclist Tonton Susanto grabbed the Asian division title of the 2002 Tour de Langkawi which ended in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.

Tonton clocked a total of 30 hours 13 minutes and 40 seconds after 10 stages to earn him the blue Asian champion's jersey.

This marks Tonton's second title after his first success in 1998 as reported by the race's official website www.tdl.com.my.

Meanwhile in the international division, Hernan Dario Munoz of Colombia won the title after clocking 30:03:31. Tonton, who was riding for the Malaysian Telekom team, finished in 15th place in the general division of the 1,310.3-kilometer race.

Last year's Asian champion, Wong Kam-po of Hong Kong, who also rode for Malaysian Telekom, could only finish third with 13:10 behind. Japan's Shinichi Fukushima was second with 6:26 behind.

In Sunday's final stage, the cyclists were involved in the criterium race in which they had to finish 12 laps of a 6.3- kilometer circuit around popular tourist site the Dataran Merdeka in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

Tonton could only finish in 88th place after clocking 1:42:14, a 24 seconds deficit behind stage winner Australian Graeme Brown who clocked 1:41:50.

Colombian Ruber Alveiro Marin won the polka dot jersey to be the King of Mountains after collecting 30 points followed by Munoz with a narrow difference of only one point.

Meanwhile, R Hunter of the Italian Mapei team won the green jersey or Sprint King title with 121 points.