THE LONGEST STAGE OF THE MONGOLIA BIKE CHALLENGE

Stage 8 of the Mongolia Bike Challenge started under grey skies this morning from the Urd Tamir camp. At 140 kilometres, it is the longest stage and one of the most difficult, offering 2100 metres of climbing with two hill climb bonuses. This stage was mainly a battle between the overall leader, Marzio Deho (Olympia) and Cory Wallace (Kona) who was looking to make up some of the time he lost in yesterday´s stage. Deho won the first hill climb bonus at 10 kilometres with Wallace on his wheel. They were followed by Canadians, Craig Richey and Tom Skinner (NOP System/BC Bike Race), and Australians Alex Denham and Rohin Adams. Wallace won the second hill climb bonus at 85 kilometres. Shortly after, Deho attacked, putting in a huge effort to lead the race, riding alone, for the next 55 kilometres. The Italian won Stage 8 and retained the overall leader classification with a time of 4h56'52". Wallace followed, 11 minutes back, at 5h07'30". Richey came in third at 5h20'51". In the Master's 1 category, Italians Mauro Canale and Daniele Sassaroli finished together, after Canale crashed earlier in the day. In the Sportman category, the new leader is Alex Denham (Orbea) after Sven Gerber had another tough day with mechanical problems. In the Women´s race, Melinda Jackson of Australia finished first, retaining her overall lead, followed by Raffaella Canonico of Italy and Jenny Li (Exustar) of Taiwan.