Dyball wins Tour de Langkawi queen stage to Genting Highlands

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Over one year since his second place finish on the Tour de Langkawi's queen stage, Ben Dyball exacted revenge with a solo win atop Genting Highlands. The Australian claiming victory 23 seconds ahead of Hernán Aguirre (Interpro) and 44 seconds in front of Keegan Swirbul (Floyd’s). Stage victory also secured the yellow jersey for Dyball and his Sapura team.

Dyball, 29, thrived on the tougher slopes of the 1,865 m high Genting Highlands compared to Cameron Highlands last year to secure the biggest win of his career The victory is also the second in four days for the Malaysian Continental team Sapura after Dyball’s compatriot Marcus Culey won on the opening day.

“Last year when I came second on Cameron Highlands I was a little bit disappointed so to go one better here is what I have been aiming for all year,” said Dyball, the first Australian winner on Genting Highlands. “This has been the one goal for the whole year.”

Dyball won both the Oceania road race and time trial titles in March to signal he was approaching his season objective in form. However the pressure remained on Dyball to deliver. Despite the attention, Dyball duly stepped up to the plate to announce himself as the best climber in the race and firmly place one hand on the winner's eagle trophy.

“This climb is a lot harder than Cameron Highlands. There was maybe only one or two kilometres that were hard but this climb was a good solid hour of climbing,” Dyball said of Genting Highlands, last used by the Tour de Langkawi in 2014.

“There was a bit of pressure from myself and also the team as this is the biggest race of the year. It is definitely good to deliver,” he said. “It is not over yet but it is a comfortable enough gap. But we can’t relax until the tour is finished.”

Dyball leads Aguirre by 27 seconds with Swirbul third at 50 seconds. The overall 2018 winner and victor on Cameron Highlands, Artem Ovechkin (TSG), was unable to repeat his success and sits 18th on GC.

With eight stage winners on Genting Highlands going on to claim overall victory, Dyball will be confident the odds are also in his favour and he can join Damian McDonald as an Australian winners of the race. The first challenge for Dyball as race leader is the second longest stage of the race at 200.1km from Tanjung to Malim as the race heads north ahead of the double stage finale in Langkawi.

How it unfolded

The queen stage of the Tour de Langkawi started in the shadows of the blue mosque in Shah Alam with 120 riders signing on to race. There was another fast start to racing with riders attempting to form the break and teams shutting down moves until the right combination was decided upon.

A group of 12 were given clearance and quickly built a one minute advantage 20km into the 114.2km stage. Riders in the breakaway included 2015 champion Youcef Reguigui (TSG), yellow jersey holder Travis McCabe (Floyd’s), Brayan Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) and KOM jersey holder Angus Lyons (Oliver’s).

The gap to the breakaway hovered around the two minute mark on the flat roads en route to Genting Highlands. At the base of the climb, the breakaway’s advantage was two and half minutes with the numbers in the front group slowly diminishing. With 13km to race on the lower slopes of the climb, a quartet of McCabe, Metkel Eyob (TSG) and Cristian Raileanu (Sapura) were the leaders on the road. Having been dropped, Chaves rode back into the now leading quartet with the small Sapura led peloton quickly closing.

From the reduced peloton, Dyball, Aguirre and Vadim Pronskiy (Vino-Astana Motors) caught and then passed the remnants of the breakaway. The trio pushed on as the gradient increased inside the final two kilometers and gaps continued to grow between riders. Dyball then made his stage winning move, dropping Aguirre while Swirbul overcame Pronskiy to claim third place. McCabe was the best of the breakaway riders in 12th but it was not enough to retain the yellow jersey. The overall podium is now unlikely to change before Sunday’s final stage in Langkawi.

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