Guardini doubles up in Malaysia

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Andrea Guardini (Farnese Vini-Neri) powered to his second consecutive victory in Butterworth. The twenty-one year old Italian was too fast for Boris Shpilevsky (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) and AnuarManan (Terengganu ProAsia Cycling Team).

“I’m very happy to win again to show that yesterday’s win wasn’t a coincidence,” an ecstatic Guardini said following his victory. “It was always going to be difficult today as I had to defend yesterday’s win and to make it two out of two but is something I’m very happy about.”

Australian Deon Locke (Team Champion Systems) broke away early into the stage and was soon joined by Iranian Hamid Shirisisan (Suren Cycling Team). They built an advantage of just over a minute with the peloton letting them escape. The duo quickly extended their lead to a maximum of six minutes.

Anuar Mannan (Terengganu ProAsia Cycling) showed his intentions about defending the sprint jersey he won last year by sprinting from the peloton to get third place in two of the three intermediate sprints on the stage.

Farnese Vini sent their troops to the front to reel the duo back in the last 30km of the stage and the lead was cut from six minutes down to two, then with 25km to the line, the duo surrendered their lead.

The pace was furious in the final twenty kilometres with the teams setting up for a bunch sprint. However disaster struck in the final kilometre, with a crash taking out half a dozen riders including Sunday’s runner-up Sung Baek Park. To Guardini’s credit, he avoided the mayhem best and another superb lead-out from his teammates ensured the Italian another victory.

Guardini thanked his team after the stage. “I must say a big thank-you to my team because they rode on the front from the first to the last kilometre. They delivered me to the line with three hundred metres to go and I managed to win the race,” Guardini said.

“Today’s win was harder than yesterday as there were so many crashes in the last kilometre. It was very hard to avoid the crashes and to cross the line first is a good feeling. I will try to win again tomorrow.”

Anuar Manan – Leading Asian rider and on the verge of collecting the sprint jersey

Anuar Manan has made no secret that he intends to target the sprinters jersey and at the end of stage two, the Malaysian sprinter sits just two points adrift of Guardini.

“Today my target was to get the points jersey and to also win the stage,” Manan explained. “I collected some points at the first and second intermediate sprints. I’m very happy to come second and unfortunately I couldn’t get the jersey today. I will try again tomorrow,” he added.

Koen de Kort – King of the Mountains leader

The peloton faced no climbs on stage two which meant that Koen de Kort didn’t need to defend his jersey. The Dutch rider, however, shared his thoughts on the stage and why the pace was slower than expected.

“I think everyone knew after yesterday that there was a big chance for another bunch sprint,” explained De Kort. “As soon as two guys went up the road, the whole peloton was happy to let the Italians do the job for us and bring us to the finish line. It’s a long race and there are many hard days to come.”

Tuesday’s stage is a relatively flat 145km run from Taiping to Sitiawan which gives the last opportunity for the sprinters to stop Guardini before two hard days in the Highlands.