Van Agtmaal chalks up third stage victory

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Jember

Peter Van Agtmaal clinched the seventh stage on Monday for his third win in the Tour d'Indonesia while local teams again had to be content with second place, courtesy of Suwandra.

Van Agtmaal of the Netherlands covered the 181-kilometer stage from Malang to Jember in four hours, 23 minutes and 30 seconds; four seconds ahead of Suwandra, who rides for the Dodol Picnic Garut team.

Ahmad Haidar Anuawar of Le Tua Cycling Team was third, two seconds behind Suwandra.

Van Agtmaal of The Jong en Laan, who also won the fourth (Yogyakarta-Solo) and fifth (Solo-Madium) stages, was in the leading group with Rhys Pollock, Mohamad Nur Rosdi, Ade Solihin and Remko Kramer, Suwandra and Rochmat Nugraha before making a break with 1.5 kilometers to go and just pulled away to the finish.

He said that the ride was quite tiring early on in the stage before the rain, which began to fall as the peloton hit the 30km mark, refreshed him.

Despite finishing out of the top ten in Monday's stage, Hossein Askari of Giant Racing Team retained the yellow jersey as the overall race leader.

The polka dot jersey as the king of mountains still belongs to Yevgeny Yakovlev of Kazakhstan.

Rochmat won the sprint bonuses fought out at three designated points in Pasuruan, Probolinggo and Jatiroto to collect 16 points overall.

The Dodol Picnic Garut rider is one point behind the green jersey holder Rhyan Tanguilig of the Philippines.

"I pulled myself ahead with the initial plan to merely help push Ryan (Ariehaan). But then the chance to sprint was open to me in the latter part of the stage," Rochmat said.

The eighth stage will be between Jember to Banyuwangi on Tuesday.

The nine-stage, 1,432.4-kilometer race, which started in Bandung on Sept. 12, will end in Bali on Wednesday.

Thirteen foreign teams and five local teams are competing for a total of US$100,000 in cash prizes.