Casper van Uden sprints to 2nd on opening Langkawi stage after good teamwork

Le Tour de Langkawi got underway on Sunday with a short and sharp 96 kilometre long route, starting and finishing in Kuah. Although there were a few short climbs, it looked destined to be a day for the sprinters and Team dsm-firmenich PostNL began the stage with that plan too; aiming to keep control of things and set up fast finisher Casper van Uden for the finale.

Bjoern Koerdt and Enzo Leijnse rode strongly to help set tempo at the front of the peloton alongside some other teams, keeping the breakaway in check as the kilometres ticked by. Approaching the last intermediate sprint, only one long rider remained out front so the team sensed an opportunity and positioned Max Poole, who showed a good turn of speed to get third through that point; taking one bonus second with it. With the original break fully caught, another counter attack went, but the team and peloton were always in control and things were back together at ten kilometres to go.

After Koerdt and Leijnse finished their pulls, Johan Dorussen took over as the drag race between the sprint trains started before he handed over to Poole who then dropped off Niklas Märkl and Casper van Uden on the back of another train. Märkl then bided his time, before bringing Van Uden up onto the shoulder of De Kleijn, where he then opened up his sprint in sight of the line. Van Uden gave it everything he had and delivered a strong kick, but on the day Syritsa was stronger, with Van Uden and the team claiming a good second place on the stage.

Van Uden said: “The boys did a good job keeping Max and me out of trouble today, and we rode on the front to make sure that it came down to a sprint. In the final they dropped me off in a good position and I could finish it off with a second place in the sprint. It’s a solid start to our racing here and we’ll look to continue that here.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Phil West added: “With it being the first stage of the race it was important to set our stall out early as we wanted a sprint, and that’s what we did. We controlled from the start and allowed a break to go away that we wanted to, then alongside some of the other teams we set tempo in the bunch. We also saw an opportunity later in the day at the intermediate sprint and we could get a nice bonus second with Max there through some good teamwork, and that might prove to be important come the end of the week. Coming into the finish the guys did a nice lead-out and positioned Casper well, but there was just one guy who was faster on the day in the sprint to the line, but that’s cycling though. It was a nice start to the race for us and if we keep up how we rode today, then we can have a nice week of racing in Langkawi.”