Tour de Langkawi: Pelucchi doubles up on stage 6

Image 1 of 6

Less than 24 hours after his stage win success in Taiping, Matteo Pelucchi (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) doubled his tally at the Tour de Langkawi. The Italian winning a fast and frenetic stage 6 bunch sprint ahead of TSG’s Youcef Reguigui and stage 2 winner Harrif Saleh.

With stage victory, Pelucchi becomes the first multiple winner at the 2019 Tour de Langkawi. The 30-year-old also adding his name to the list of Italian sprinters to enjoy multiple successes in the Malaysian race. For Andrea Guardini, the quest for a 25th stage win at Tour de Langkawi continues after the Italian was boxed in during the sprint following the hard work of his Bardiani-CSF team.

"I am happy with back-to-back victories," said Pelucchi. "The team worked very well today. There was a very fast pace and the team's strategy today was to be in the breakaway group, which we did with Marco Benfatto.

"After the breakaway was caught, then it was my turn to move to the front and we worked well to get into position and go for the sprint. I am more confident now and we will go for another win in the coming stages."

The shortest stage of the race thus far in 2019 proved also the fastest with the breakaway struggling to establish itself throughout. Two breaks enjoyed minute plus leads but on each occasion they were brought back to the peloton. Bardiani-CSF and Gazprom taking on the chase with assistance from yellow jersey holders Sapura. The possibility of a sprint finish far from likely for the majority of the 130.8km.

Despite the numerous attempts to wrest the yellow jersey off his shoulders, Ben Dyball (Sapura) retains the race lead with no change to the top ten on GC. The two final stages on Langkawi island set to decide if Dyball can retain his 27 second lead over Hernan Aguirre (Interpro) and 50 second advantage over Keegan Swirbul (Floyd’s).

"Today was very stressful. The first 90 km was just attack after attack and big splits kept going up the front. Everyone seemed to have someone high up on GC in it so we had to keep following everything,” said Dyball, who expecting further aggressive racing in the two stages to come.

The penultimate stage of the race starts and finishes in Pantai Cenang, taking the riders on a 106. 9 km loop of Langkawi with the likely outcome a sprint finish.

How it unfolded

Ahead of the afternoon transfer to Langkawi, the peloton assembled at the stage 6 start town of Began by 8 a.m. Although the morning temperatures were cooler then previous days, the racing was no less hot.

Headed north to Alor Setar, the stage started with a flurry of attacks as riders tried to force the breakaway. A trio held the peloton at 25 seconds in the opening 20 km and survived past the opening sprint point in Sungai Petani. A group of seven bridged across to the lead with 46 km covered in the first hour of racing.

At the second sprint point, the breakaway was 25 seconds up on the peloton but it proved a short lived move. A little under half way into the stage, a new breakaway formed with nine riders accounted for and 15 in pursuit. The two would join with Sam Chrome (Ukyo) the best placed overall in the front group.

The break enjoyed a maximum lead of 1:35 minutes before Sapura and Gazprom came to the fore, successfully bringing them back. A new group of six riders the last to roll the dice for stage victory. Of the six riders, defending champion Artem Ovechkin (TSG) was the best placed and represented a danger to Sapura. The race leaders with Bardiani-CSF working to extinguish the threatening move.

In the final 10km, the peloton was back together but a flurry of attacks kept the sprint teams on their toes. In the sprint, it was Androni again taking the spoils with Marco Benfatto leading out Pelucchi for the win.

Full Results