Ivorians dominate Tour Du Ghana

Accra, Oct. 14, GNA - Cote D'Ivoire endorsed her dominance in the sixth Tour Du Ghana Cycling competition on Thursday as she snatched another individual top spot in the four-day old race at Tamale. Coulibaley N'gatta won the fourth stage at the Tamale 80-kilometre crunch encounter and thus, became the second after veteran Abdulai Troare, winner of the first stage at Cape Coast on Monday, to clinch the top spot.

The neighbouring West African country also produced a power finish to take the third stage in the Team Time Trial on Wednesday at the Sunyani-Techiman race, bringing their total victories to three out of the four stages.

Ghana's "wonder kid", Ayitey Akoto fell two seconds behind N'gatta as he clocked 2:12:34 win over Ivorian Abdulai Troare, who finished one second behind.

The only brightest spot in the Ghanaian three-team competitors is experienced rider Rudolf Mensah, who brushed aside stiff opposition from Togolese Agbefu Didie and compatriot Nurudeen Aliu of River Park, to win the second stage for his club City Migro.

Troare still maintains his yellow jersey sponsored by Pepsi due to his overall performance.

Akoto won the Wienco sponsored Green jersey while Coulibaley was the winner of the Stage jersey sponsored by SDV.

Ghana's Aminu Osman of Tamale and a member of the Pepsi team, won the Woodin's Elegance prize while Ivorian Lokossue Kouame took home Ghana Telecom's Combactivity prize also known as Hotspot. The cyclists are covering a total distance of 623 kilometres across some principal towns in the country, which ends on Sunday, October 17. Three teams from Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire are competing along side three from Ghana.

The fifth stage is scheduled for Kumasi on Friday.