As Patrick Eddy was flying out of the bunch to link up with his Picnic PostNL teammate Oliver Peace in the breakaway on the final stage of Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi in Tangkak, it looked like one of the most undermanned teams on the start line of might have been just about to pull off a master stroke.
The three riders from Picnic PostNL that remained in the race – Matthew Dinham on the comeback trail alongside Eddy and Peace – were on high alert early in Sunday's stage to make sure none of the riders that could threaten Eddy's mountains classification jersey could get out the front in the break. Stage 8, after all, had three categorised climbs.
Eddy had been sitting on equal points with Jambaljamts Sainbayar (Burgos Burpellet BH) since stage 3, the sprinter an unlikely and unintended King of the Mountain initially, but once there he and the team ran with it..
"It was never the plan, but now they have something to race for," team sports director Pim Ligthart told Cyclingnews before the final stage of a race where they had claimed the overall victory last year.
The original target for Eddy had been the sprints and there were a couple of top 10s, but it wasn't proving an easy task to match the sprint lead-outs of the bigger teams when there were just three on the squad, the remainder being lost to injuries and illness.
Given Eddy was holding the climbers' jersey heading into the final stage, walking away with it was the aim, but protecting it wasn't enough for Eddy, who doesn't yet have a contract for next year. He was chasing more and stage 8 was his final chance.
"Matt and and Ollie did a really good job helping me out to make sure those guys didn't get in the breakaway," said Eddy in Kuala Lumpur. "Ollie also got in the move himself, and then took away some of those points and sort of gave me the freedom to not have to worry about going for the points and look for the stage win instead."
That, after all, had been the aim from the start, given how well the 22-year-old was climbing after his debut Vuelta a España.
Stage 8 at Langkawi, with its two category 2 climbs within the final 30 kilometres of racing, seemed like a good opportunity for Eddy to have a tilt at the victory. He launched from the bunch with about 20km to go and quickly made inroads as he worked toward his teammate Peace and Nil Gimeno (Equipo Kern Pharma) up the road.
"I got the green light to go on the attack if I wanted to, and I did a good effort over that first climb," said Eddy. "And then I attacked solo in the descent.
"When I was bridging across to Ollie it looked like it was all coming together, until I had that mechanical and that was my day over."
That mechanical with about 17km to go came in the form of a flag that was being waved from the roadside but then got caught in Eddy's wheel. The Australian then had to watch as his rivals first caught him and then rode on by as he waited for the team car.
"I felt really good and I also don't get the green light so often to race for my own results," said Eddy. "And that's also OK, but when you can and it doesn't go to plan, or something out of your control stops you from getting a big result of course, it's frustrating. But that's cycling."
