Emile must ride like the wind

Abraham is currently 12th in the pack of 37 riders who will start today’s final stage — the Tour of Tobago which is the most demanding of the four-day event.

He is the best placed among the Trinidad and Tobago pedals pushers after the fourth and penultimate ride yesterday.

The others flying the Trinidad and Tobago flag are David Alves (20th), Guy Costa (23rd) and Stephen Ramberan (32nd).

However Abraham, a multiple winner of the race must ride like the wind today along the mountainous course to catch up with overall leader Ivan Stevic, a Serbian who is his teammate on Team Angostura.

Stevic heads the standings with a time of ten hours 27 minutes 21 seconds. Patrick Reidesser of Austria (Apo-Sport Wiesbauer) is second placed in 10:13.12 with Hugh Moran, another Angostura rider third overall in 10:13.24.

Yesterday Race Director Robert Camps said from Tobago that Abraham is almost 19 minutes behind the overall leader which is a very big gap to close.

"It may be near impossible for him to win the race from here. But you can never tell. The mountain stage is very unpredictable so we can’t really rule him out," said Camps, a former national road race champion.

Yesterday’s fourth stage was won by Pepstein Bjorn of the German team in 2:54.40, ahead of second placed Angostura’s Stevic (2:55.36) and Austrian Reidessar ( 3:02.80).

Camps said this year the Tobago Classic is being marked with the best quality field ever to race in the sister isle.

"We have guys from Austria, two German teams, riders from the United States and some quality men from Martinique. The fact that 37 cyclists are still in it tells you a whole lot about the level of competition," Camps said.

He said that Abraham, who was an early favourite to regain the title after surrendering it last year is not at his best this year coming off a very hectic season in the United States. "He is a bit tired and admits so after several gruelling races in the US. So he could not give his best. But he can still be a threat," said Camps.

The race director said he was impressed with the work the Tobago Police has been doing to enforce the traffic code and implement the new route which was designed to make the race safer this year.

"All that we have done has worked well and the Police have been great in making sure that the race has been incident-free this year. We met with them a week before the start on Thursday and identified the danger spots. They have recognised our effort to safeguard riders and people who line the route,"said Camps.

Austria’s Paul Kasis won stage three of the Tobago International Classic on Friday competing in the colours of Austrian team Apo-Sport Wiesbauer.

He finished four minutes ahead of his nearest rival but Martinique’s Herve Arcade continued to lead the overall standings followed by Austria’s Patrick Riedesser and Hugh Moran of Team Angostura.

Arcade has an overall time of 7:10.31 hours with Riedesser a mere 33 seconds behind and Moran, 40 seconds back in third.

Werner Riebenbauer, also of team Apo-Sport Wiesbauer, trails the leader by 48 seconds in fourth while the German pair of Timo Scholz (7:11.55 hours) and Steffen Wiegold (7:12.16 hours) are fifth and sixth respectively.

Seven-time champion Emile Abraham came up short yet again, finishing nine minutes behind Kasis in the third stage and lies 15th overall, a distant 12 and half minutes behind the overall leader.