Shpilevsky slips away for stage win in Langkawi

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Boris Shpilevsky (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) attacked his breakaway companions to win stage nine of the Tour of Langkawi in Nilai today. The 28-year-old made his move in the final two kilometres and held off the group with Perrig Quemeneur (Europcar) and Robert Forster (UnitedHealthcare) rounding out the top three.

Overnight leader Jonathan Monsalve (AndroniGiacottoli) picked up precious bonus seconds to extend his lead to five seconds over Libardo Nino (Le Tua Cycling Team).

The stage was delayed for an hour due to flooding on the course from heavy rain overnight and an alternative route was found with the stage reduced from 154 kilometres to 127.

The peloton let a break get up the road featuring over half a dozen riders, and the group managed to hold off the peloton by 26 seconds with Shpilevsky attacking to take a deserving victory.

“Today’s race was fast. It was always attacks, attacks attacks,” Shpilevksy said. “The others in my group looked at everyone and thinking about the sprint but not about the attack and I attacked and crossed the line five seconds ahead of the breakaway group, so I’m very happy.”

Shpilevsky has enjoyed success in Asia before, collecting over half a dozen stage wins in the Tour of Hainan in 2008 and 2009 as well as winning the overall classification in 2008 but admits that this is his biggest victory in his career.

“This is my best result. We were searching for this result for nine days and we’re really happy. I really like Malaysia. I was here seven or eight years ago and I really like the people and the organization,” he concluded.

Jonathan Monsalve was pleased with how his team rode today and was happy he extended his overall lead.

“It has been another very hard stage and once again my whole team has worked a lot. When I saw one kilometre to go to the first sprint I was marking Libardo [Nino] to make sure that he wasn’t getting seconds from me.”

“I also realised the sprinters were not going for the sprints so I sprinted and gained three seconds and it makes me more quiet for tomorrow when I have to preserve the lead,” Monsalve said.

When asked about his strategy for the final stage, he added, “I don’t know yet. We’ll go to the hotel tonight and once it’s quieter we’ll have a meeting but for sure we’ll pace the bunch tomorrow until the end. We have the jersey we have five seconds lead. It’s not much so we haven’t won the race yet.”

The success of the breakaway gave Andrea Guardini (Farnese Vini-NeriSotttoli) a commanding lead in the points competition, now holding a 19-point lead over Shpilevsky. He congratulated Shpilevsky on his victory.

“Boris did well going into the breakaway. He found the right breakaway and deserves the win, he has ridden a great race.”

As for himself, Guardini said, “In my team we had Miyazawa in the first group so we gave him the green light to go for the victory. At three kilometers to go I decided not to sprint for maybe four or five points, they are not really needed.

“It’s fair to give a chance to the other riders in the team to try and win. I wasn’t at 100 percent of my capacity today because day after day I feel a bit tired and today was all about consolidating my blue jersey and keep some strength for tomorrow.”