Alex Molenaar (Burgos-BH) won the rains oaked final stage of the Tour de Langkawi from a two-rider break while Ivan Sosa (Movistar) came home safely in the main pack to take the overall win.
Jason Osborne (Alpecin-Deceunink) came second on the 115.9km stage from Kuah to Kuah, after being easily outpaced by Molenaar at the finish. Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) brought home the bunch for third.
Molenaar and Osborne were the the survivors of an early break of 6 that formed early in the race first splitting in two and then dropping Hugo Toumire (Cofidis) on the last climb.
"We were in in the break with really good riders, really high level," Molenaar said in Kuah, the biggest town on the island of LangkawiI, which hosted both the start and finish of the stage. "I was feeling pretty good but other riders were riding really strong so it was really difficult but we made it."
The course was almost a carbon copy of the previous day but with just one more local loop into Kuah and one extra run up the category 3 climb to make it three passes of Lebuhraya Langkawi.
The leader since stage 3, Sosa took the overall win by 23 seconds on Hugh Carthy (EducationEF-EasyPost), with Torsten Traen (Uno-X) in third.
“It was a very fast day," said Sosa. "The breakaway at the front was doIng a very good job and it was very hard for us to chase them down but at the end it’s a good outcome.”
“It’s very good to finish the season with a victory at the Tour de Langkawi. it’s a very important victory for my confidence and my future.”
How it unfolded
The last day of the eight stage Malaysian race – which had returned to the calendar in an unusual late calendar time slot after a year of cancellation – was on familiar territory for the 103 riders taking to the start line. The usual monsoon season is just around the corner but it seemed intent to come early this year, delivering a deluge that led to landslides on the category 1 climb of Gunung Raya, home to the intended finish on Monday, which meant stage 7 was instead converted to an only slightly modified version of the stage 8 course.
Still even with Gunung Raya out, it proved to be no easy day on the bike on stage 7, putting riders on notice for the final day. It was n’t long before the break took off. It started with Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Hugo Toumire (Cofidis), Jason Osborne (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Anatoliy Budyak (Terengganu Polygon) and then Cameron Scott (ARA Pro Cycling) and Alex Molenaar (Burgos BH) also joined at around 15km into the racing, with the riders working their way through the first loop of the day, with 3 different circuits altogether.
The initial one worked its way through to the south-west of the island, travelling along the coast line with views out to the islands of Pulau Tuba, Dayang Bunting and Singa Besar and then returned through past the pockets of villages inland before going through the Kuah line, which marked the intermediate sprint at 30.8km. Budyak took top points from the break, which by that stage had carved out a lead of around two minutes.
The rain came down as the race wound its way around the 59km loop, which passed wildlife and geoforest parks and the thick vegetation at stages gave away in the north to allow glimpses of the beach, blue waters and tree covered islands. It was on this loop that the break of 6 turned into a break of 3 with Toumire, Molenaar and Osborne leaving their companions behind.
This time gap at the return to the line and intermediate sprint 2 – won by Osborne - was falling as the break entered the 7km long local loop for three circuits. By the second of three, at the 12km to go mark, it was down to 45 seconds and on the last loop Toumire was dripped on the category 3 climb.
There were a number of riders attempting to bridge across to the front including Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Lotto Soudal) and stage 5 winner Lionel Taminiaux (Alpecin-Deceuninck) but in the end none could make the junction. That meant 18 seconds after Molenaar sprinted to victory ahead of Osborne, there was a sprint for the final spot on the podium with Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates) - who was relegated on stage 2 - taking third.
As well as the overall order remaining just as it was on stage 7 - with Sosa first, Carthy second and Traeen third, the key jerseys remained in the same hands, with the green sprinters jersey remaining with stage 6 winner Eriend Blikra (Uno-X Pro Cycling) Nur Aiman Zariff (Terengganu Polygon) took the climbers’ classification and his teammate Jambaljamts Sainbayar the best Asian rider jersey.
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