The Discovery Channel Marco Polo Team doesn’t have a good showing in Vuelta Extremadura in Spain. For some riders the race is simply too hard, just one week after arriving to Europe; others got sick or crashed.
The trouble began before the race started, as Dean Iversen is injured and probably cannot race for a long while; the Chinese riders got delayed as their visa procedure took too long and Kenji was called up as emergency replacement.
The team started with 5 riders only; Kenji dropped out in the first stage, already. Then Thijs and Pol crashed, causing Thijs to drop out. Pol still racing, but not feeling well; all scratches and bruises and a sore back.
Then Robin got sick and also dropped out, so the team is down to two in the last stage. Loh is suffering a lot in his first stage race in Europe this year and Pol hoping every day that the next day will feel better.
With Yutong and Xing Yan Dong due to arrive and two Dutch one day races on the program next week (Overijssel and Kempen), hopefully things will get better soon!

Wong Kam Po of Hong Kong won the world title on the track in the Scratch race!! A big surprise in the Mallorca World Championships...
Wong has been a Marco Polo team member for two years, winning races in Asia and in Europe for the team.

We are proud that Wong won the world title! He deserves it like no other, Wong is not only one of the most talented cyclists in Asia, he certainly is one of the most dedicated riders around!!

In the women's GC it was Britta Martin (a top-triathlete) who kept her 1st place.
Danielle Bekkering had a great day. She attacked early with a Canadian rider and outsprinted her at the finish, bringing a great victory to the Pakistan SSGC team were she rides for in this event.

Robin Reid has won the tough second stage in Tour of Islamabad. With this win, he is back in contention for the overall win again, something that seemed impossible after stage 1. 
In stage 2 Robin finished alone, after dropping Ahad Kazemi Sarai in the final of the race.
Robin: "I guess I'm a climber now, that I can drop Iranians on a course like this!" The stage had 2500 altitude meters in 110 km.

The experieced New Zealander won the 12 day Tour of Pakistan last week.

 Report from Islamabad:

Todays stage in the Tour of Islamabad started with a hard chase for the leading Iranians. They caught the early break with Robin Reid, DCMP Team and Giel Nabben from Marco Polo Cycling Netherlands at the bottom of the climb. Oggi started the first 3 of the 12 KM climb with a hard tempo which broke what was left over from the peloton in pieces. About 12 riders were in a frontgroup and Hisanori and Yu Tong worked as hard as they could to loose more riders. At the second climb on the same mountain only 7 riders were left-over. But it was Robin Reid who made the right attack and even dropped Kazemi Ahad from Iran. He rode solo to the finish taking another victory in Pakistan. Yu Tong came in 5th. Kazemi is still leading the classification.