Le Tour de Langkawi: De Kleijn wins again on stage 5

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Dutchman beats Malucelli and Syritsa in Melaka sprint finish

Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) won stage 5 at the Tour de Langkawi
Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) won stage 5 at the Tour de Langkawi (Image credit: Getty Images)
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Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) doubled up with a second stage win in two days at the Tour de Langkawi, beating Matteo Malucelli (JCL Team Ukyo) and Gleb Syritsa (Astana Qazaqstan) on stage 5 in Melaka.

The overall lead remains in the hands of Max Poole (Team dsm-firmenich-PostNL) for a third straight day, with the Briton taking part in an early attack.

After some 20 riders, including last year's winner Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost) finished outside the stage 4 time limit, the hilly early half of stage 5 took the riders through the Genting Highlands for the last time in this year's race. 

After the race was neutralised briefly because of a spell of very heavy rain, the four riders were slowly reeled in one by one on the much flatter second half of the stage  - De Bod being the last - and a bunch sprint became all but inevitable.

Polti-Kometa and then Tudor Pro Cycling worked hard on a fast downhill segment  as the bunch fragmented, only for stage 1 winner Gleb Syritsa (Astana Qazaqstan) to open up the sprint early on the right-hand side.

Stage 2 winner  and points leader Matteo Malucelli (JCL Team Ukyo) was on De Kleijn's wheel in the centre and closing fast, but the Dutchman kept his pace high to keep the Italian at bay by just under half a wheel.

"It was a hard stage, specially the beginning," De Kleijn said. "On the second climb I was dropped with all the other sprinters, but we started riding and got back on."

"There was a lot of chasing in the bunch but we had Simon in the break and that meant we didn't have to do that, which was good."

"Then the guys put me in the perfect position and I did a really good sprint."

Yet another sprinters' stage - the fifth in the 2024 race out of six so far -  beckons on Friday, in the shape of a flat 123.6 kilometre run from Batu Pahat to Kulai.

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Alasdair Fotheringham
Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent,  The Guardian,  ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.

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