Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) claimed the win at the Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi on stage 2 to Kepala Batas, taking his first victory of an injury-complicated season with a perfectly played effort in the sprint.
To take the stage victory, he topped his regular rival in Malaysia and stage 1 winner Matteo Maluceli (XDS Astana), who nevertheless held onto the overall lead. In third place, it was Enrico Zanoncello (VF Group-Bardiani CSF Faizane).
"They put me in position, the team. We went a little bit more in the bubble, instead of choosing a side and they opened up for me and put me in the wheel of Eriend Blikra (UNO-X Mobility). When they had the full lead out, I knew when I had the wheel I have a good shot to win," said De Kleijn in the post podium media conference.
"I went and it felt good, and I had enough power to hold it to the line."
The victory in the hot conditions of northern Peninsular Malaysia may be De Klein's first of the season and first of the 2025 edition of the race, but the rider who came third on stage 1 has now accumulated a tally of five wins in Malaysia over three editions and there are plenty more sprint stages to come.
How it unfolded
The race moved from Langkawi and onto the Malay Peninsula on Monday, starting at Padang Besar, which is about as far north as you can go without crossing the border to Thailand. It was a wet beginning for the race, which set off from a shopping centre, and into a 166.1km flat stage, which worked its way south via a route that ran parallel to the coast.
The rain didn't completely give up, but eased a little and through the towns along the way, with spectators braving the conditions and convening early to watch the passing parade. Plenty were gathered on the side of the roads in urban areas, with the children from the school along the route enjoying being out of the classroom to watch the spectacle, and through the countryside, where rice fields stretched off into the distance and dwellings were sparse, families were set up outside their houses.
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Stage 2 Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi (Image credit: Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi)
The riders gave them a show, with plenty of attacks along the way, with Nate Hadden (St George), who was in the break yesterday, among those attempts. "Trying to get up the road is the main goal for me," Hadden told Cyclingnews before the stage. "Obviously, there are some pretty fast guys here and some pretty big teams so at the end of the day I just want to represent myself as much as possible and give myself every opportunity I can."
Like many other attempts on Monday, Hadden's break didn't stick this time, but another including Iván Cobo Cayón (Equipo Kern Pharma), Nur Aiman Rosli (Terengganu) and Joris Delbove (Team TotalEnergies) got an advantage in the run-up to the first intermediate sprint. Cobo and Delbove capitalised on this to take the top two spots. Aaron Gate (XDS-Astana) overcame Rosli and swept up the points for third from the bunch.
The breaks then came and went, with the wet conditions now cleared, until Cedril Christophersen (Unibet Tietema Rockets), Vadim Pronskiy (Terengganu Cycling), Thanakl Chaiyasombat (Thailand Continental Cycling) and Hayato Tobaru (Aisan Racing) got the gap and then stretched it out to beyond a minute at the halfway point of the stage. As a result, Pronskiy, Chaiyasombat and Tobaru swept up the intermediate sprint points in Pendang.
As the race headed toward the final 30km before the finish line at Kepala Batas, which sits on the banks of Sungai Muda, the teams of the sprinters were starting to put on more pressure in the chase and the break was shedding members with Chaiyasomba and Tobaru falling away, then it was Christophersen alone out the front before the catch was made and the sprint set up began.
Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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