Canola surprises to win Langkawi's 7th stage

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Marco Canola (Colnago – CSF Inox) claimed the biggest win of his career, taking out stage 7 of Le Tour de Langkawi. The 23-year-old Italian finished ahead of Joon Yong Seo (Seoul) and Serguei Klimov (RusVelo).

Andrea Guardini (Farnese Vini), who had dominated the sprint competition prior to the last two stages in the hills, led home the peloton at pace but his efforts were not enough to retain the blue jersey with Valentin Iglinskiy (Astana Pro Team) its new owner.

Overnight general classification leader Jose Rodolfo Serpa Perez (Androni Giocattoli) remains in yellow.

How it unfolded:

Attacks were a feature of the first 25 kilometres of the race, although no one was successful in the escape. The result was a hot pace and in the first hour of racing, the peloton had covered 51kms.

Sixteen riders eventually broke the will of the peloton to stay intact, just ahead of the first sprint. Valentin Iglinskiy (Astana Pro Team), Raymond Kreder (Garmin-Barracuda), Marco Canola (CSF – Inox), Serguei Klimov (RusVelo), Valerey Valynin (RusVelo), Mathieu Claude (Team Europcar), Yohann Gene (Team Europcar), Kenichi Suzuki (Aisan Racing Team), Floris Goesinnen (Drapac), Adrien Niyonshuti (MTN Qhubeka), Jacques Janse van Rensburg (MTN Qhubeka), Choon Huat Goh (OCBC Singapore), Joon Yong Seo (Seoul), Hassan Suhardi (Malaysia) and Joe Cooper (New Zealand) were the riders which got away, with a puncture ending the hopes of UnitedHealthcare's Karl Menzies of featuring in the break.

After just under 100kms of racing complete, Iglinskiy, Kreder, Canola, Klimov, Claude, Gene, Suzuki, Goesinnen, Van Rensburg, Goh, Seo, Suhardi, Cooper remained in the break. Meantime Androni and Farnese Vini were doing the lion's share of the work at the front of the bunch, so the gap was slow to increase and would only go out to a pinch over four minutes.

The attacks from within the lead bunch began with three kilometres to go and it was Canola who made the decisive move with 200m remaining before the finish.

Results