Tour de Langkawi: McCabe sprints to stage 2 victory

In 2016, John Murphy was the early season successful story for UnitedHealthcare as he won stages of the Herald Sun Tour and Tour de Langkawi. Fast forward 12-months and its new signing Travis McCabe who is notching the wins.

On the stage 2 of the Tour de Langkawi into Gerik, the longest day of this year's race at 208 kilometres, it was McCabe raising his arms in triumph and doubling his 2017 win count. McCabe and his UnitedHealthcare team formed the winning sprint train with the American too fast for Filippo Pozzato (Wilier Triestina) and Ryan Gibbons (Dimension Data).

"We came here with the ambition to win and we really wanted to work on the lead-out train that we have," McCabe said after the hot and humid day's racing.

"We showed yesterday that we have the lead-out train and the power to deliver me to the line. I made a real amateur mistake and jumped way too early yesterday. Today was about being patient, and being mindful of the metre markers and going when I needed to go, and it paid off."

Stage 1 winner and yellow jersey wearer Scott Sunderland was unable to make it over the hilly parcours in the front group. By finishing in third place, Gibbons did enough to secure the yellow jersey and is the new race leader.

"My team was perfect for the last 15 kilometres. They sat on the front and then without two kilometres to go, UnitedHealthcare came to the front, they really had a good lead out so congratulations to them. Coming down the final drag I was sitting perfectly on Travis' wheel, I was just a bit under geared," said Gibbons.

"I had a bike change early on and it didn't have the same gears as my normal race bike, that is my own fault, and with the speed of the downhill I just ran out of gears and couldn't get the win today."

How it unfolded

Stage 2 of this year's Tour de Langkawi saw the peloton assemble in Jerteh. Early nerves in the peloton caused Filippo Pozzato and Harif Saleh to hit the deck, followed by a throng of attacks in the attempt to establish the breakaway. Saleh was forced to retire from the race due to his injuries with the aggressive pace too much to handle.

After 40km of racing, the break finally went clear with 14 riders quickly putting two minutes between themselves and the peloton. Two riders made it across to the leaders before the peloton sat up, content with the composition of the break.

However, with news that Dimension Data duo Adrien Niyonshuti and Jacques Janse van Rensburg were in the break, the Androni Giocattoli controlled peloton started to chase down them down. The four-minute lead dropped dramatically to just over one minute with the hard chase from the bunch that was not going to let the move stick.

Niyonshuti and Lorenzo Rota (Bardiani CSF) decided to attack the breakaway, splintering it and leaving riders with the option of chasing or sitting up. From the splintered break, Loh Sea Keong (Thailand), Joonyong Seo (KSPO), and Ameer Ahmad Kamal (Malaysia) managed to bridge across to the two leaders to form a leading quintet, 50 seconds ahead of the chasing bunch.

At the base of the category one climb, the breakaway had swelled to 20 riders and pulled out a three-minute advantage. Midway up the climb, Niyonshuti and John Ebsen went clear as the new leaders on the road to leave behind the breakaway. Ebsen then rode away from the Rwandan to go solo with yellow jersey holder Sunderland struggling on the climb and losing contact.

Ebsen was allowed to dangle out in front before a group of three riders bridged across to the Dane. On the second categorised climb of the day, he again took maximum points to secure the KOM jersey.

On the flat run-in to the finish, the breakaway was swept up as the sprint teams took over to set up the bunch kick finale. Following the good work of the 'blue train', inside the final 150 metres it was McCabe timing his run to perfection and taking the victory.  

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