Tour de Langkawi: Mekseb Debesay wins queen stage to Cameron Highlands

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Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Saturday’s queen stage of the 2017 Tour de Langkawi up Cameron Highlands was deemed too tough by race leader Ryan Gibbons but the Dimension Data rider emerges from the day with his race lead intact.

It was a perfect day in the saddle for Dimension Data, with Mekseb Debesay taking the victory ahead of Cameron Bayly, and Gibbons – known for his sprinting rather than climbing – leading a chase group over the line for third place.

“Inside I am competitive, and I want to be in yellow, but I didn’t think I could [keep it]. There are a lot of good climbers, Italian and Colombians, and I don’t have anything in my history to prove that I can climb that well so this was new to me. I was not bluffing, it was a real surprise,” neo-pro Gibbons said post-stage.

“Coming up to the last climb we still had five riders and were sitting on the front. I think that was really important. It started raining just a little bit before the last climb and a lot of the Colombians and Italians lost a rider here and there, and we were just calm and relaxed in the front and rode as a team. That is what helped us today.”

Bayly is Gibbons’ closest challenger in the general classification at 11 seconds, but that lead is expected to increase in Gibbons favour due to the bonus seconds available on the road.

While Gibbons was relieved to have held onto yellow, Debesay was equally enthused after his first win at HC level.

“My dream was to be a professional cyclist, and my dream has come true,” said Debesay. “Today was my best result in a tour, in a high-class race.”

Alberto Cecchin (Wilier Trestina) is the third rider on the GC podium, 15 seconds in arrears to Gibbons.

How it unfolded

A tranquil peloton of 108 riders rolled out of Seri Manjung to commence the queen stage of this year’s race. There was little fight to establish the day’s breakaway with a quintet getting clear and putting two minutes into the bunch.

The leaders, Afiq Othman (Infinite AIS), Kota Sumiyoshi (Aisan), Eiman Firdaus (Malaysia), Joonyong Seo (KSPO) and Thurakit Boonratanathanakorn from the Thailand team, had increased the lead to out over six minutes after one hour of racing. In the peloton, Dimension Data controlled affairs with assistance from Androni as the gap stabilised around the five-minute mark.

The break started to splinter as they hit the lower slopes of the long climb to Cameron Highlands with their lead cut down to three minutes. Loh Sea Keong (Thailand) and Amirull Fakhruddin Mazuki (Terengganu) bridged across to the break, catching then passing the leaders with only Seo and Boonratanathanakorn able to go with them.

In the peloton, it was UnitedHealthcare setting the fierce tempo with riders starting to feel the strain and lose contact with the front group as a result. The pace set by the American team, to set up Daniel Jaramillo for the win, brought the leaders back within two minutes.

With five kilometres to the finish line, the attacks started to come thick and fast from the reduced peloton with the breakaway, and early moves on the slopes, consumed by the UnitedHealthcare- and Dimension Data-led bunch.

Egan Bernal (Androni), Chris Harper (IsoWhey Sports SwissWellness) and several Manzana-Postobón riders were active in the finale, attempting to make it as hard as possible. In the end, the lessening gradient inside the final kilometre brought about a regrouping with Debesay and Bayly nudging ahead to contest the stage win. Four seconds back, Gibbons crossed the line for the best result of his young career with IsoWhey Sports SwissWellness punching above its weight by placing three riders in the top 10.

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