Stage 5 - Shah Alam > Genting Highlands Second and last mountain stage, this time it's up Genting Highlands. Probably the more difficult of the two key stages. Suaza pretty muchd destroyed the competition two days ago and he should fancy his chances to defend the race lead today. Obviously, any bad daily form can cost you the victory though: Pinot tried to attack, too and we better should expect him to try again today. Also König or Costagli are well within striking distance, if they manage to get away with a notable gap. It's possible for sure.
The break of the day is quickly formed, as we have six riders going clear by more than two minutes early into the stage:
Seibeb and Hoelgaard easily the strongest climbers in this group and it may be a tactical move to support Brajkovic or Cataldo later on..
No one takes care of the intermediate sprints, but there's some more action halfway through the stage:
Downey bridges across the 3-minutes-gap between the early break and the pack with now 73km to go. A quite interesting move, since we can't expect Downey to be a factor on the long summit finish - but he's showing his team's colours that way.
It's once again no easy day for the escapees anyway and the peloton is less than a minute in arrears, just when the pack enters the final climb with still 19km to go:
Belgasem as the pace setter right now, so GCN is yet again showing their NC colours on the climbs here! Suaza, Pinot and Pomoshnikov already at the very front of the field as well - can we expect something big today?
Seibeb and Hoelgaard unsurprisingly are the last escapees not being reeled in by the peloton yet! Still 15km to go and Matsumoto is the next early escapee being swallowed by the peloton, that has already been reduced to just 59 riders in the meantime..
Seibeb/Hoelgaard with a 54" gap now, but it probably won't last for too long, if Belgasem keeps pacing like that!
He doesn't though! Just when it looked like they would catch all them escapees, the race settled down and the peloton allowed the two remaining leaders to grow their advantage back to something around 2 minutes. Once Belgasem dropped off the front, there was no other team really taking care of keeping the pace that high..
Hasta now at the front of the pack (46 riders) and he just keeps the gap at 1'33" with no real pressure on the less strong GC contenders though. Just 6km to go now and nothing big happened yet..
Maybe now though? The big raised the tempo and with now 3.5km remaining, we see the peloton finally go into pieces and the first big guns attacking each other:
Pinot went first, Suaza quickly follows!
A few moments before, Pinot and Potocki had done some pace setting and a small group of GC contenders had been built:
König Costagli Panayotov Rodrigues Hasta
as those in the group, that his 39" ahead of the first bigger group of 18 riders, including names such as
Pomoshnikov and Stancu Hirschlein Anacona Brajkovic Cataldo Hacecký Diaz and so on...
Pinot and Suaza with a strong move there, as no one else could follow! With now 2.5km to go, the duo is 24 seconds ahead of König, who's solo chasing with a further 27 seconds advantage on the group with Costagli/Rodrigues/Panayotov!
The race ain't going too well for Pomoshnikov/Stancu or Hirschlein, as they are already 42 seconds behind group Costagli at this point:
At the very front, it's going to be a close one for the still leading Seibeb/Hoelgaard duo:
Pinot/Suaza are coming closer with now just 12 seconds of disadvantage with one kilometre to climb!
König 31 seconds behind, group Costagli further 32 seconds down the road (Hasta has been dropped from this group now)..
Just a few hundred metres to go and just when Suaza and Pinot (who can't steal any seconds from Suaza, it seems) caught up to the leading duo, Seibeb and Hoelgaard kick off the final sprint! They seem to have enough energy left to actually accelerate, which is good news for their attempt to take the stage..
..and indeed, Seibeb takes the stage! With his captain Brajkovic nowhere to be seen (at least in the best groups), he was allowed to go on his own - a brilliant stage win on Genting Highlands is definitely a nice reward. And looking at the latest gaps between the few first groups, he will surely make a nice jump in the GC, too!
Hoelgaard comes in 2nd, which should be a fantastic result for himself, too. Of course unlucky to miss out on a stage-win that close..
+ 13" for Suaza and Pinot
In the meantime, Costagli rode away from his group, trying to bridge across König, who's still 15 seconds ahead of him though..
Rodrigues managed to dropp Panayotov/Potocki and Hasta is still in between those two and the next groups..
+ 1'11" for König, who holds off Costagli as 5th on the stage
+ 1'29" for Costagli as 6th
+ 2'15 Rodrigues, Panayotov and Potocki
Rodrigues struggled on the final metres, but still a nice 7th place on this stage, where a few other climbers (who did well two days ago) obviously suffered big time!
+ 2'45" Hasta
+ 2'53" Baltazar, Elissonde, Grmay and De Marchi
+ 3'26" Brajkovic and Hacecký
+ 3'48" for a bigger group with Pomoshnikov and Stancu
Surely a bad day for the duo, that was so strong on Cameron Highlands! Thanks to their advantage prior to the stage, they probably won't fall too hard, but to finish just inside the Top-20 after their efforts from two days ago is certainly not what they had expected.. also another low-key performance from Diaz and Cataldo, who finish in the same group - just like Anacona.
+ 4'48" for Hirschlein, who will definitely lose his 5th place in the GC that way..
..and Suaza definitely defended yellow in style. A great performance to go with Pinot's strong attack. The Frenchman though did well, too and will probably finish as a well deserved runner-up in the GC here. A nice reward will be also the shared KoM-lead, if nothing special happens in the final two stages with only minor mountain sprints on the menu.
König 3rd in the GC, Costagli 4th.. Seibeb moves up to 5th, which is simply great news for his team (Brajkovic adds a somewhat quiet, but solid 14th place).. Pomoshnikov/Stancu drop to to 6th and 7th, Hirschlein down to 12th!
