The team photo of Team Corbusier’s line-up for the Health race with (from seventh left, standing) principal Safri Mohammed, coach Shaiful Helmi and junior’s coach Supian Nor.
KUCHING: The Sarawak Health Road Challenge starts today with the inaugural team time trial event.
The championship will feature teams from Peninsular Malaysia and Brunei for the first time.
It will have a prize fund of over RM10,000, making it one of the richer races in Malaysia.
As of press time, seven teams are confirmed for today’s 15km event with Kuching’s Team Corbusier, Team Sonamu and Team Viking as the odds-on favourites for the title.
Brunei and Terengganu are unconfirmed as to whether they will race the event.
The route of the race will see the five-men teams depart from the Petra Jaya start line and finish near the Santubong area.
Corbusier will most likely field their top line-up of captain Laurel Lauridsen Adrian, Team Malaysia riders’ Mohd Nor Rizuan Zainal and Amirul Anwar Jafri plus Kalimantan pros Fito Prilanji and Yudhi Rachmad.
Team Corbusier principal Safri Mohammed expects the winning team to clock around 20 minutes for the race.
“The winning time should be the team that can average 45kph over 20mins. They will have to do 48-50kph consistently over the distance,” said Safri.
On paper, his team looks to be the most potent based on the organiser’s on-line registry of competitors.
Viking, with their Indonesian riders, looks set to give a strong challenge as will Sonamu who will have an all-local line-up.
The event is scheduled to start at 8.30am in front of the Sarawak State Health Department.