Hondo happy with return to racing

By Susan Westemeyer

Danilo Hondo is satisfied with his successful return to racing in the Tour of Langkawi. "I reached my goal of winning a stage and the SRM data gives me hope for more." He added, "Our team can of course be more than satisfied with two stages wins, the overall win for Ruslan Ivanov and the overall team ranking – you can't expect more than that."

Not everything went as planned, though. In the final sprint of the seventh stage, he went down shortly before the finish line, right in front of the onrushing peloton. "I was just sprinting by [Maximiliano] Richeze and [Alberto] Loddo when Richeze swerved from the right to the left, so that Loddo went directly down and took me down with him," Hondo told Cyclingnews. The incident "cost a lot of energy, sleep and skin, plus the possible chance of another stage win," the 34 year-old continued on his website, danilo-hondo.de.

His next race was to be the Giro di Sardegna, but its cancellation means that Hondo will now join his team for a week-long training camp near Rome, after a few days at home. Racing will begin again with the GP Lugano, followed by a number of Italian races, ending up with Milano-Sanremo.