KUALA KUBU BHARU–The 7-Eleven Roadbike Philippine riders failed to break free from the big guns manning the peloton in the 151-km Stage 5 Le Tour de Langkawi from Meru Raya to Kuala Kubu Bahru.
Marcelo Felipe, the 7-Eleven team leader who hung on with the rampaging main bunch to cross the line several wheels behind winner and yellow jersey holder Ryan Gibbons of Dimension Data.
The winning group was timed 3h, 27m and 20 secs.
Dominic Perez’s attempt for the sprint was spoiled early with another crash near the finish involving KSPO and Giant riders.
In the sprint, Gibbons, with full support of his teammates, pipped Jakub Marezcko of Wilier Triestina and Marco Benfatto of Androni Giacattoli, who settled for second and third.
Gibbons increased his overall lead from 11 to 23 seconds over closest rival Cameron Bayly of Isowhey.
“Getting second on stage 1, that was a sense of achievement but today my first pro win is more a relief than anything else and I’m just so happy to finally get a win for the team and also for myself,” Gibbons said.
“This result will stay for the rest of my career. On a good day on a flat road, I can win a bunch sprint but today with a bit of a drag and the road surface being bricks, it suited me a bit more but moreover my team put me in a perfect position. I would have been hard not to win. I’m really grateful for their help.”
“I wasn’t targeting the intermediate sprints”, the race leader continued. “It was more riding defensively. Every time with 1km to the sprint we so IsoWhey moving up. They had the teal jersey with Sunderland but Bayly was also up there so I had just had to make sure I’d finish in front of him. I’ve managed to pick up four points and two seconds. It was mainly watching the guys on GC, not worrying too much and not attacking them. The teal jersey is a great award but my focus for now is the yellow jersey. If it happens that I can win it as well, I’ll be grateful though.”
The whole stage was marked by one breakaway only. After fifty kilometers covered at a very high speed, Italy’s Fausto Masnada rode away, got a maximum advantage of 3.50 and sat up after the last intermediate sprint with just over 20km to go as the bunch was certainly going to reel him in.
“We wanted to ride offensively today since yesterday it didn’t go that well for us”, the Androni Giocattoli rider said the day his team manager Gianni Savio attended Le Tour de Langkawi. “We expected something more [the yellow jersey with Egan Bernal]. We started today with the idea to break away. After 50km, seeing that big groups weren’t going anywhere, I tried by himself, hoping that I’d get some help but nobody followed so I continued on my own. I never got bored. I’m happy I did it. I also came here looking for a good shape ahead of the races in Italy, so it’s been a good day.”
Stage 6 from Senawang to Muar will be 176.3km long with three climbs to start with in the first 45km.
Organised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Malaysia and managed by Ciclista Sports Sdn Bhd, the 22nd edition of Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) from 22 February to 1 March, 2017 is set to cover more than 1,200km over 8 stages, the UCI 2.HC (hors category) race featuring again as one of the biggest events on the UCI Asia Tour calendar.