Rene Weissinger successfully defended his yellow jersey by winning consecutive stages for Skil-Shimano of the Netherlands in the Tour of Qinghai Lake cycling race, which extended 162 kilometers from Bird Island to Xihai County.

Weissinger meant what he said as a good sprinter, duplicating his first stage win by pulling out of a bunch of riders to wrap up the second stage title in three hours 42 minutes 18 seconds.

"I caught up in the last 25 kilometers, and I tried to sprint out of the group at the last gasp to win again. It's so fantastic. Yesterday is harder, but today I got the pressure to defend the yellow jersey," said Weissinger.

"I'm proud of wearing the jersey as the captain, and my team will definitely try to defend the jersey as best as we can do."

"We caught up in the last 25 kilometers, so I didn't worry about the results," said Pieter Hoekstra, team manager of Skil-Shimano from the Netherlands.

"We stayed in Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province, for eight days before the race and we also spent eight days in Qinghai Lake where is 3,000 meters high before Xining's stay, so the highland is not too hard for our riders," Hoekstra added.

"We have good hotel, good food, so everything is OK and we don't complain. We will do our best to defend the jersey and I will not say yes and not say no, for we still have seven stages, which will be very hard. At least we have kept the yellow jersey for two days."

Alex Pavlov of South Africa snatched the mountain climbing title from Askari Hossein, while the first-day's mountain king retained the Asia best honor representing Giant Asia Racing Team from Chinese Taipei.

The fifth Tour of Qinghai Lake 2006 consists of nine stages held on July 15th-23rd with 140 riders on behalf of 20 teams from five continents participating in this event. The total race distance will be approximately 1,350 kilometers. The total amount of prize money will be US$250,000.

 (China Daily July 17, 2006)