Manuele Tarozzi narrowly managed to fend off the sprinters on stage 6 of Le Tour de Langkawi to claim his VF Group Bardiani-CSF Faizané team's ninth win of the season from a lengthy breakaway.
The Italian allrounder saw off his only most persistent rival and fellow breakaway, Stefan de Bod (EF Education-EasyPost) to net the win by a small but sufficient margin of nine seconds on the peloton.
"De Bod tried to attack at the red triangle, but then he went too early," Tarozzi explained in a team press release. "while I launched the sprint 300 meters from the finish. It couldn't have gone better today."
Max Poole continues as race leader with two stages remaining, although the Team dsm-firmenich-PostNL climber's advantage of 14 seconds over closest overall pursuer Thomas Pesenti (JCL Team Ukyo) is a very narrow one. A further seven GC challengers are still only a little further back, at 20 seconds.
After the two early time bonuses on the largely flat stage 6 from Batu Pahat to Kulai were passed, a four-up breakaway formed, containing Tarozzi and VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane teammate Davide Gabburo, De Bod and Valentin Darbellay (Corratec-Selle Italia).
Despite Tudor ProCycling's best efforts, riding for their double stage winner Arvid De Kleijn, two riders from the move of the day managed to keep the sprinters' teams at bay, with Tarozzi then smoothly going clear in the last few hundred metres to take the win.
"We initially aimed for the general classification, but I had a bad day at Cameron Highlands. We also lost Lorenzo Conforti due to a crash, but Mattia Pinazzi showcased himself in the sprints, and the rest of us focused on breakaways," Tarozzi said, dedicating the win to his wife Silvia.
"I'd like to thank Davide Gabburo for his great help and our director Alessandro Donati, who pushed me to try again today."
Stage 7 of the Tour of Langkawi on Saturday, a 199 kilometre run from Miri to Bintulu is by far the longest of this year's race. However, with only one cat.4 ascent with 40 kilometres to go featuring on the largely flat terrain, even if the GC battle will likely ensure there are continuing battles for time bonuses along the way, the stage should almost certainly conclude with the fifth bunch sprint of the week.
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