Guardini takes fourth victory at Tour de Langkawi

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Andrea Guardini (Astana) sprinted to victory in Kuala Lumpur on the final stage of the Tour de Langkawi, with Youcef Reguigui (MTN-Qhubeka) finishing safely in the bunch to seal his overall win.

After 96km of racing, including six laps around the Malaysian capital, the Italian latched onto the lead-out train of Southeast before launching his sprint with 200 metres remaining and holding off Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) and Michael Kolar (Tinkoff-Saxo) to take the win.

He did so with a depleted team as Andrey Zeits, Daniil Fominykh and Maxat Ayazbayev were forced to abandon the race on Saturday after a bout of food poisoning at the teams’ hotel. The victory caps another dominant display in Malaysia for the Italian, whose four wins in eight stages takes his total tally to 18 in five editions of the race.

“It’s fantastic because this is my fifth win this year,” said Guardini, who also won the opening stage of the Tour of Oman. “It’s incredible because I’m only at the start of the season and it’s great for me and the team. I know this finale really well and I made the sprint alone because I took the powerful train today and I made my sprint really well at 200 metres.”

Though Reguigui kept his place atop the general classification, there was movement further down as Valerio Agnoli (Astana) jumped from fifth to second, pushing down Sebastien Henao (Team Sky) into third and Pierre-Luc Perichon (Bretagne-Seche-Environnement) into fourth. He did so thanks to a three-second bonus for winning the first intermediate sprint, where he was led out by none other than Guardini – the man he has been working for all week.

“I wanted to give him a hand because he worked well for me before,” Guardini told Cyclingnews. “It was stupid not to make anything of it and try for the podium – from fifth to second changes a lot. It was a fantastic race for us today because we took second place on GC and we took the win for me – it’s the best way to finish this Tour de Langkawi.”

For 25-year-old sprinter Reguigui, the overall victory marks a significant result and something of a surprise given that he won and took the leader’s jersey on Saturday atop the only summit finish of the race in a team that had four climbers in their line-up. After four other top-ten finishes in the race, he might have been tempted to go for the win himself today but admitted there was too much at stake.

“I am very happy to wear the yellow jersey,” said the Algerian. “Today the job was to control the race from the beginning to the last 2km of the circuit. Afterwards I stayed behind Orica-GreenEdge and I didn’t take any risks with crashing or anything because the focus was just to keep the jersey to the finish line.

“This is the first professional [stage] race win for me. When I came to Langkawi I didn’t support the weather because it is very hot. I come from Europe where it’s like four or five degrees, and with 40 degrees it’s difficult to go all the day on the bike. But I did two days training and I started the first stage and every day I got stronger.”

Despite being beaten for the fourth time in the race by Guardini, 20-year-old Australian Caleb Ewan goes home with the blue points jersey and two stage wins in the bag.

“We came here with the plan just to win one stage so to come away with two and the points jersey exceeded expectations,” he said. “I was really happy with how the race went and I was really happy with how the team worked together.”

Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthCare) secured the red King of the Mountains jersey that he had worn since day two, while Tomohiro Hayakawa (Asian Racing) ended up with the white jersey for the best Asian rider in the race. Pegasus Continental Cycling finished atop the teams’ general classification, thereby scooping the prize for best Asian team, too.

How it unfolded
The stage started in Kuala Kubu Bharu and with only 96km of racing ahead, including six 6.6km laps around Kuala Lumpur, a bunch finish was always on the cards.

That didn’t stop the moves going and after 30km the break of the day was away, featuring Bruno Pires (Tinkoff-Saxo), Leonardo Duque (Colombia), Jonathan Clarke (UnitedHealthCare) and Rafaa Chtioui (Skydive Dubai).

Slowly but surely they built up their advantage and had almost 1.30 as they reached the Malaysian capital and crossed the finish line for the first time. They crossed it in the lead five more times and were only caught with two kilometres remaining. It was at that point that Southeast hit the front, the 41-year-old Alessandro Petacchi trying to engineer a first stage win for 20-year-old Jakub Mareczko, who had been second twice and third once.

As he has done all week, Guardini chose the best train and the best wheel and went from there, launching himself as the road curved round to the left at 200 metres. Ewan, whose Orica train wasn’t as well coordinated today, had to react and although he came back at Guardini, the Italian had once again played it to perfection.

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