It's time to bring the Tour de Langkawi to a close and it has been one of the most challenging circuits we have ever seen. The early mountains saw the battle between the top climbers and whilst Marco Marzano
has been able to defend his jersey admirably other riders have fallen back with crashes being the main issue.
Todays race finishes on a tight circuit that contains a 5.3% climb which rather opens things up a bit and no-one can really say whether it favours sprinters or punchaers. Perhaps things look most favourable for current green jersey Danilo Napolitano
who has decent climbing skills for a A star sprinter.
Early on we have a double climb and the ever keen Michael Vink
romps up the road to take both.
This moves the Australian up to third in that competition as Marzano and Gianpaolo Caruso
look set to share the win if they finish the day.
Pim Ligthart
takes second at both for the improving Koppert team with Masaaki Kikuchi
third at the first and Massimiliano Maisto
third at the second.
In addition to the four points scorers mentioned
21st on GC at 12.27 Wilmer Vasquez
makes the break with Jordi Simon Emilien Viennet Freddy Cruz
Aker Solutions pulled a similar trick the day before and Vasquez takes the first sprint to nudge himself another six seconds forwards. Cruz is second and Simon is third here.
The break plan though looks like it will fall short after the calls from VolksWagen to help chase are heard from Unicredit and Bianchi who feel their lead sprinters have a crack at today.
30 km to go and the gap is 2.21, it's enough for the break to get through the second sprint that the greedy Vink gobbles up ahead of Kikuchi and Viennet. But the breaks hopes are doomed when a third team join the chasing in Proximus Trek and it's wiped out just inside of 20km.
This moves Ciolek up to joint second with race leader Marzano on 71 points still ten points behind the leader Napolitano, Guillen nudges himself up to 58 points closer to joint 4th placed Cavendish and Caruso on 65 points.
8 km to go and this up and down hill circuit is proving hard to control as Michael Matthews
lauches with Remco Te Brake
in tow.
You have got to admire Koppert and Oz Cycling for the constant attacking and the pack just do not have the energy to chase back. Eyeing an oppurtunity 3rd on GC Daniel Moreno
attacks with the also keen to show themselves Meiji Fuji's Sergei Lagutin
joining in.
Attention then needed at the front particularly for Carlos Castaño
who has just 35 seconds on Moreno with Marzano 1.23 ahead VolksWagen cannot ignore this move.
The pace then is raised causing the inevitable crashes!
We can clearly see the Spanish national jersey of 12th on GC Koldo Gil
and also French champion John Gadret
less visable but also down is Gianpaolo Caruso
Up front VolksWagen really are playing close attention but not nabbing back the Moreno move, frustrated Marzano decides to take matters into his own hands.
The Italian gets away underlining the struggle the pack have to control breaks on this circuit and he probably has sealed his Tour of Langkawi triumph by reeling Moreno and the whole break in. As he makes it across Matthews accelerates again.
The attention now falls to the Pirelli team to pull this back, though in truth Unicredit may also concern themselves about Marzano easing back into points jersey contention here. But it appears there is nothing to stop the attacks as 4th on GC Hubert Schwab
now goes.
Up front Matthews has about 10 seconds as he starts sprinting, but feeding off of Te Brake, Moreno and Lagutin ease up to Matthews as we come into the final kilometre.
The pack are not going to come back and the surprise Jayco Red Bull team leader is going to hold off the Meiji Fuji man to record his teams second successive victory here.
Matthews hangs in to third ahead of the pretty shattered but jubilant Marzano with Te Brake fifth. These five finish some 46 second clear of the pack which is lead in by Guillen and Lequatre.
Looking back Napolitano can only finish 13th meaning he can only take three points today to Marzano's 14 points for fourth meaning he loses the points jersey by ONE point. An amazingly narrow margin to lose a season goal by!
Stage winner Moreno will move to second on GC ahead of Castano, news that may ease the pain for Jayco Red Bull whose prerace leader Gadret slips out of the top ten alongside the luckless Caruso. Schwab and Stetina round out our GC top five the latter winning the young riders jersey.
