Kaohsiung City, Taiwan - Despite traveling half-way around the world just two days earlier, members of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis showed no signs of jet lag in the opening stage of the 2008 Tour de Taiwan. Certainly John Murphy had the legs going.

Murphy swept the three intermediate sprints out on the course during the 88 km circuit race, which included 40 laps of a 2.2 km course, and finished seventh on the stage to take the Tour's first green points leader's jersey.

"The team did an excellent job of leading out Murphy for the sprints," noted team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. "Kyle (Gritters) was particularly instrumental. On the second sprint, we did a drag-race leadout and Murphy just killed it."

The stage featured numerous attacks, "but we did a good job of always being represented in the breaks," Tamayo said. With three laps to go, a break of six riders slipped off the front and opened a gap that reached 15 seconds.

"There wasn't much reaction from other teams when they went," Tamayo said. "On the last lap, Kyle and Corey (Collier) did their best to bring down the gap."

They did their job well. Coming into the finale', Murphy was leading out Kirk O'Bee through the final corner, and the duo caught the break in the sprint. But due to the narrowing road in the finishing straight, "Kirk literally had no road to go around the break," Tamayo commented. As a result, O'Bee finished sixth on the stage, with Murphy right behind him in seventh.

The stage was won by Kam Po Wong of Team Hong Kong. In addition to scooping up enough points to earn the green sprinter's jersey, Murphy also earned nine seconds in time bonuses that put him in second overall, just one second behind Wong.