Mountain NC in Malaysia and this means, Sauber is the team to be favourite. They split their team in 3 squads having the three favourites each. Mat Senan, Rusli and Zamri are the only climbers in the field.
Though the more known riders might be the sprinters in Malaysia or the top puncheur Anuar Aziz. Meiji with 2 riders might hope for this NC as well while Quickstep and Siam Cement only have 1 rider.
Not ideal for Sauber. It`s 3 of 5 of their riders in the break.
But while Quickstep with Anuar Azit and Meiji with Othman have semi good climbers, Sauber sends their 3 weaker riders of their 2-rider squads each. Two track sprinters and one punchy sprinter. But none of them is a climber.
Apparently the team manager thought the same and so we see the 3 Sauber climbers cooperating behind chasing them down.
Othman though giving it yet another try.
And this time he is allowed a gap. Obviously it was mainly due to Anuar Aziz, that was not allowed to go. But this move isn`t very smart neither now as the gap goes up to 8min at the top of the first climb.
Possibly a scenario, where splitting teams was a bad idea as a combined team could have worked for 1 leader instead. Now the sprinters lack the energy to work for their climbers and those don`t want to work for themselves against each other.
Othman knows he has this one. Too big the advantage. Meiji with a small surprise here if winning an outsider NC can be called a surprise.
Othman wins but wait...Sauber is celebrating. And indeed the puncheur was just on loan at Meiji, just like Salleh. So the NC goes to Sauber, which might explain the ignorance of him earlier, while Anuar Aziz could have disturbed their dominance here. Well played Sauber. Well played.
The ITT is between Ahmad Zamri and Awang. So should also go to Sauber as the next strongest is Mat Senan also riding for them.
Last years winner Awang beats Rusli and Mat Senan by 28/41 seconds early on.
But Ahmad Zamri is even a bit faster. 10s at the first split.
And he gains another ~10s with every split. 42s in total for him in the end. More than 2min for the next but 4 Sauber riders in the first spots show their dominance in Malaysia.
Muhamad Adiq Othman
