I don't know why, but I didn't get interested in the Tour Down Under 2008. OK, I watched the last stage live and enjoyed it, but somehow - and promising sprinter Andre Greipel won it overall BTW - it just didn't get me in, not in that stage-by-stage build-of-tension kind of way. Lack of decent race-splitting hills, perhaps? Same guy winning - seemingly - every day? I may have well been watching Big Tom clean up, as always, in a small, rich desert nation somewhere.
But the lesser-ranked Tour de Langkawi in Malaysis is a different kettle of fish. The sprinters are under the hammer already. Stage 1 - a 19-man break succeeds, only to see Sprick step away 3km from the line to grab the stage and the overall. Stage 2 saw a 2-man break, a pursuit, a likely catch foiled and another split winning the day with Jeremy Hunt taking the win. Well it seems pretty lively to me.
