Last stage and plenty left to fight for in this Jelejah Malaysia race. The 56km criterian is eight tight laps of 7 km each might not look too inspirational but as we saw in the Tour de Langkawi bad things can happen!
Lets hope thats not the case today, but the stage win is up for grabs and as always sprint points will be keenly fought for. Mohs and Van Avermart as ever will be favourites, Mohs (on 141 points) leads the points classification by 15 points and will want to hold on to that, behind these Crocket (on 97 points), Impey (on 95 points) and Loddo (on 93 points) will want to get a good result to seal third place.
On the GC time bonuses have given us a solid 1 -2 -3 of Alarcon, Lopez Garcia and Samwel, they probably just need to get round in one piece in the peleton. Behind that from 4th through to 11th the riders are on the same time differentiated by count back. The positions here are...
4 Raisen (220)
5 Carrara (226)
6 Rodrigues (244)
7 Riblon (323)
8 Rodas (369)
9 Perez Sanchez (381)
10 Hesjedel (388)
11 Stetina (435)
If they all finish together it looks like a battle for position for 4th to 6th and for 8th to 10th. Stetina very active yesterday will be disappointed to be in 11th place on GC, but he will be boosted by the polkadots on his back...
King of the Mountains for keeps
Plenty of early attacks and with 43km left we have...
Kristoff (UBS) and Jallays(Petronas) in the lead
then...
Dupont (Pirelli) and Matthews (Red Bull) at 34 seconds
then...
Garbelli (Vespa), 16th on GC Loosli (El-Al) and Rizio (Unicredit) at 1 minute
then...
Telenor led peleton at 4 minutes.
The peleton are letting this dangle a bit and it feels as if the chance of a breakaway win may be there, the corners are tight and the leaders can take them faster. Dupont of Pirelli is doing well and drops Matthews to bridge to the two leaders.
Dupont bridges, matthews does not.
With 20 km to go, however the peleton has got serious and has caught most of the breakaway riders apart from the first three who have just 53 seconds and indeed they are caught with just 2 of the 7 km circuits to go.
Pokerstars hungry for a 2nd stage win.
The speed is high and the cornering tight, its not surprising that we have our first crash. Unfortunately its a rider near the front of the pack and a major casualty.
Bbox and Pirelli rider down
The Bbox man is yesterdays attacker Didier, the Pirelli man is spinter Loddo putting paid to any stage win and sprint classification hopes. However race radio reports that this has set off an even bigger crash...
Carnage in KL
Its seems as if a couple of IKEA riders are involved...omi... its ALARCON!
Disaster for IKEA
How can lightening strike twice, there does not seem to be anyone else of note back here, wait there is ...
Its KOM Stetina and Diniz (Bbox)
11th and 12th on GC men have also taken a tumble. Its nasty and with the Sprint imminent the peleton are going like a rocket. No doubts Alarcon will lose the yellow jersey on the last stage - what a shocking moment. At the front the trains are forming and on the turny circuit we have this with 4700m to go...
The peleton tries to get organised for the sprint
On the left we have the UBS Forster/Richeze train with Galdos (Santander) on the wheel. A bit across and the other side of the pace snake we have Unicredits duo Borrajo and Borghesi. Paolini(pirelli) is on his own between the Red Bull train Beppu/Haider with Impey on wheel on his left and Mercedes train Sinner/Brea with Westling on his wheel. Its difficult to concentrate on the sprint, we go back to Alarcons group a lot of riders with torn jerseys they are 2.30 back... its over I'm afraid. Its good news for Lopez Garcia (Santander).
Will Alarcon come to Malaysia again?
Up front its Unicredit who are going well with Borghessi, though Mercedes, UBS and Santander still look in it.
Borrajo as a couple of lengths
As we go through the next km its Borghessi who is make the move to join his teammate...
Could this be a Unicredit one two?
Borghessi keeps going, but Borrajo is going back wards its Galdos, Brea, Haider Anauwar and Richeze battling for the minor placings...
Borghesi wins KL crit
Borghesi wins it
... its Galdos that will take 2nd just ahead of Brea then Haider Anauwar. Mohs and Van Avermart rather tamely finish 14th and 12th respectively this short crit obviously didn't suit them! Meanwhile Lopez Garcia finishes safely in the pack, he rode followed moves yesterday at the right time and didn't overextend himself. He grabs an unlikely win really.
A surprise winner of Jelejah Malaysia
Meanwhile, a irratated Alarcon rode in over 3 minutes later...
The torn yellow jersey might as well go in the bin.
Matteo Carrara managed to leapfrog Raisen and finishes on the podium, probably deserves it for the way he rode on Genting. He does this by finishing in a high position, in fact the El Al man lost another place to Vitor Rodrigues of Bimbo who wins the Young persons jersey!
