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Meyer claims Tour of Japan

published 25 May 2008

By Gennie Sheer West Australian Cameron Meyer has taken out the Tour of Japan, heading the...

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Cameron Meyer took the overall win in Japan (Image credit: Miwako Sasaki)

By Gennie Sheer

West Australian Cameron Meyer has taken out the Tour of Japan, heading the SouthAustralia.com-AIS outfit that also claimed victory in the teams classification. After team-mate Wesley Sulzberger took an early lead, Meyer jumped into first place in stage 6, one day after he propelled himself up into second on the tough time trial up the Mt. Fuji.

Meyer held a slim one-second margin over compatriot Jai Crawford from the Trek - Marco Polo Cycling Team, but was able to double that by the end of the race.

"It feels really good to win because I haven't won a Tour overall for a while, so it's good to show some form and get the result," said Meyer, whose last overall stage race win was in 2007 in the Tour of Tasmania.

"Today was a bit nerve wracking mainly because it was pouring rain and we only had one second up our sleeves, so we had to be alert the whole day," said Meyer. "But we were still confident because we've been riding really well as a team and we backed me as being faster than Jai in the sprint."

The team had hoped a break would go away early to neutralise the intermediate sprints but aggressive racing early on saw the main bunch contest the first intermediate sprint at around the 50-kilometre mark of the stage.

"We had to line up for the first sprint with Marco Polo working for Jai and my guys led me out," said Meyer, who edged Crawford out for third place and a one-second bonus.