Guardini wins Le Tour de Langkawi opener

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After missing out on success at the Dubai Tour, the Tour of Qatar and the Tour of Oman, Andrea Guardini (Astana) claimed his first victory of the 2016 season on the opening stage of the Tour de Langkawi –the race where he successfully begun his career in 2011. He took his number of stage wins in the Malaysian race to nineteen but fears it may be more difficult to win other stages after lost a precious Astana teammate in a crash.

“It’s always hard to win, especially when being the hot favourite,” Guardini said. “In stage 1, it’s also difficult to take control of the events. Everyone was waiting for my team to do it. Fortunately, Southeast collaborated with us to catch the breakaway. There were good riders at the front but a lot of head wind at the end.”

Speaking later to Cyclingnews, Guardini explained the finale of the stage and the high-speed sprint.

“With five or six kilometers to go, I was on the wheel of Jakub Mareczko of Southeast team with my guys. But I realized we were in the wrong place because we were on their left and the last curve was to the left hand side. I opted for the right side without choosing any particular train to move up. It was a good choice. It enabled me to get out of the wheels of the Drapac riders. I took the curve in third position. I knew it would be narrow but I paid attention to not fall off. The head wind also helped me as I launched my sprint from the third position with 300 metres to go.”

He dedicated the win to his newly born niece. “For the first time I became an uncle last night so this win is for Robin, my niece,” he explained.

Finally winning a sprint was a relief for the Italian, who had hoped to avoid from travelling to Malaysia for the sixth time in his career this season. However he was unable to win at the Dubai Tour so he prepared for the Tour de Langkawi, knowing it is his lucky event.

“As a team, we’ve done a good job today”, he said, “But we’ve also lost Ruslan Tleubayev who broke a collarbone in a crash. It’s nice to have the jersey but it’ll be even more difficult to control the race with one rider less.”

Brenton Jones shows his speed for Drapac

The sprint finish highlighted some new sprinting talent, including Australia’s Brenton Jones of Drapac, who raced the recent Tour of Qatar with the Australia Professional Continental team.

“I can’t complain,” Jones told Cyclingnews after completing his first ever stage of Le Tour de Langkawi. “We wanted to start off on a good note. Second to Guardini who has won a lot here before while this is my first time makes me happy. The boys did a really good job. Graeme Brown went through the last corner first. I got a little chopped off his wheel but I wasn’t too far behind him so I had a good sit into the head wind. I saw Guardini go and I went behind him. He was a bit quicker today but we’ve showed good form and hopefully we’ll get better as the week goes on.”

Third placed Andrea Palini also expressed his satisfaction with his sprint. The Italian has already for 17 days so far this season after riding the Tropical Amissa Bongo, the Dubai Tour and the Tour of Qatar.

“Considering that our flight was a bit delayed to bring us here, I’m happy with the outcome”, the Italian commented. “I’ve felt the jet lag while racing. This morning I was also affected by a little bit of food poisoning. I had to grit my teeth in the finale. I entered the last curve right behind Guardini. I managed to fend off other sprinters who wanted to overtake me. Third is a pretty good result.”

The early action

Chinese attacker Wang Meiyin lays in second position overall after collected time bonuses in the intermediate sprints while part of the break of the day. The versatile rider from Hengxiang who is well known in Malaysia after he finished fifth overall in 2013, having won the Cameron Highlands stage and the King of the Mountains prize that year.

He bridged the gap to the initial three attackers Adiq Hussainie Othman (Terengganu), Loh Sea Keong (Malaysia national team) and Meher Hasnaoui (Skydive Dubai). Loh -the only Malaysian to have been part of a WorldTour team when with Giant-Shimano in 2014, forged on in a brilliant solo effort after the break fell apart. He was the last rider to be caught by the peloton with ten kilometers of racing to go.

The eight-day Tour de Langkawi continues on Thursday with stage 2 from Sungai Petani to Georgetown. The stage is 158km long and will mark the return of the Tour de Langkawi to the island of Penang for the first time since 1999.

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