Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez was reminded that he is still some way from shoring up overall victory in the Tour de Langkawi when South African threat Reinardt Janse van Rensburg unleashed his challenge in the sprints of stage 5 on Sunday to chip away at his overall deficit by gaining time bonuses.
Lopez (Astana) is still the overall race leader after the 148.8km fifth stage from Tapah to Kuala Lumpur that saw his Italian teammate Andrea Guardini win in a bunch sprint to secure his 20th career stage win in the eight-stage Malaysian race – and his fourth from the four stage finishes in ‘KL’.
It is a remarkable record for Guardini, who also won stage one, considering his career tally of professional wins is 37.
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“It’s a wonderful day because for me … it is a perfect day,” Guardini, 26, said. “Its my fourth finish in six years [in Kuala Lumpur] and I win every year.
"It's fantastic, because when I was at 20km to go I was thinking, ‘Always when I am riding here I can feel a lot of my adrenalin for this finish. I know the sprint really well – what I need to do, when I need to pass and where I need to sprint to win.’ And I did it all perfectly. I started on the right side and then went to the left to cut the roads when I was in the front. I did a really good sprint.”
In humid and hot conditions that soared to 35C degrees-plus, Guardini won the bunch sprint finish that was made certain when another day-long break was caught near the finish. Behind him was Italian Andrea Palini (Skydive Dubai) in second while Janse van Rensburg was third to jag a four second bonus, on top of two seconds he took with his second place in the first of three intermediate sprints at 42km.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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