Tour de Langkawi: Syritsa takes stage 2 sprint

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Stage 2 of the Tour de Langkawi brought with it another bunch sprint finish, this time won by Gleb Syritsa (Astana Qazaqstan) ahead of opening stage winner Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling).

The pan-flat 186.2km stage from Kuala Terengganu to Kota Bharu was always likely to produce another bunch finish and so it did with the two men emerging at the front of the peloton in the final metres to battle it out for the win.

De Kleijn made the mistake of opening the sprint slightly too early, though, jumping at 300 metres to go with Syritsa in his wheel. Unlike Saturday's opener, he wouldn't make it to the line first as the Russian rider managed to push past inside the final 50 metres.

Enrico Zanonchello (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) rounded out the podium in third place. Meanwhile De Kleijn hangs on to the race lead by the narrowest of margins, a mere 0.02 seconds over Syritsa after two days of racing.

"I'm so happy to have won and beat Arvid today. I got it all wrong yesterday, made a mistake in my sprinting tactics…but today, it was all good," De Kleijn said after the stage. "We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

"My team did a great job in leading me out, but with 200 metres to go, I tried hard but in the end, I felt I didn't have it today. There's more sprint battles in the coming days, and I'm looking forward to lock horns with Gleb again,"

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