Stage 2 Report（English）
TOUR OF JAPAN 2015 Stage 2（Inabe／130.7km）
Number of visitors：18,000
Temperature：26℃
Weather: rainy, fine later
The Tunisian Giant seeing green!
Inabe,Mie 19th May 2015 – Konichiwa! The second stage of the Tour of Japan was held at the city of Inabe in the Mie Prefecture. Inabe is located in the northeastern part of the Kii Peninsula with the Inabe River flowing through the city.
The Inabe stage is a brand new circuit that is presented to the Tour of Japan on its 18th edition to the delight of its 18,000 fans that presented themselves for the race even though storm clouds hovered over the start line this morning.
The wet course proved today that technical abilities and good bike handling skills were needed to negotiate the tricky narrow sections of the course.
The race was the first and second finish for the Skydive Dubai Pro Cycling Team with Tunisian Champion Rafaa Chtioui of Skydive Dubai Pro Cycling Team taking the win in a time of 3’10’’06 over compartriot Francisco Mancebo who finished 15 seconds behind. The winner also meant that the Green Jersey had a new owner with Drapac’s Brenton Jones making way for the Tunisian Champion to start tomorrow’s stage with the Leader’s jersey.
In the third postion, Lampre Merida’s Luka Pibernik crossed the finish line with a time of 3’10’’21.
Tomorrow’s stage, Mino, a home of the Mino Washi Museum will see the riders tackling the 139.4km including 4.0km parade course that will set to see the sprinters battle it out to take the stage win.
Comments from the riders as follows:
Rafaa Chtoui, Skydive Dubai Pro Cycling Team
What happened during the last 10km for you and what are your plans tomorrow?
“The last 10km was an active one for me, I tried to make a big rhythm for the climb so as to avoid return/surprise attacks from the other riders. I had good legs and I noticed I was one of the stronger riders in the break. I was confident that after the climb I’d recover faster than the others but I knew that some of the riders were watching me but I decided to give it a go within the last 5 km and I just went and took my chance. I am very happy to win a stage in the Tour of Japan this year and my team would be looking for a good position on the General Classification and hopefully win some more stages and we will continue to do our best to send our lead rider for the Green Jersey as well.
