Leaving the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, a fast and aggressive start to stage five saw the peloton head to the hills in the opening part of the day. An early puncture for race leader Max Poole at the foot of the first climb saw some great teamwork from Team dsm-firmenich PostNL to help him return in a good way, before the squad could race from the front. A fast pace was set and on the next climb the group thinned down with Poole in their, before attacks flew towards the top. Following in the wheels, Poole made it over the crest in second position and on the wet descent the group split, with Poole finding himself in a front group of four which then became three. Utilising the good opportunity as the heavy rains fell, Poole was able to gain some more valuable bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint points.
The severe rain saw the race briefly neutralised with 80 kilometres to go, when Poole and his breakaway companions held a three minute advantage over the peloton. Once things resumed, the peloton got more organised and the gap began to quickly fall so once Poole gained maximum bonus seconds at the final intermediate sprint he returned to the bunch, and soon the rest of the break was caught. Enzo Leijnse, Bjoern Koerdt and Niklas Märkl covered the attacks in the following five minutes, but soon things settled and Leijnse helped contribute to the tempo at the front. Coming into the finale and sprint finish the team looked to bide their time and come with speed to bring finisher Casper van Uden forward, but they got blocked in somewhat and a crash in front of them derailed their chances of competing for a result come the line.
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Phil West expressed: “There was action from the beginning today. It all started when Max punctured at the bottom of the first climb but we remained calm and Enzo waited for him directly, and we could bring him back quickly with the guys showing some good teamwork. Max could then race it from the front and some other squads tried to put some pressure on up the climbs. Max followed one of the moves over the top and on the descent they ended up away, so we took the opportunity to take some time bonuses and it also meant we didn’t have to pull in the peloton behind. Halfway into the stage Enzo crashed quite hard but he was able to continue and then even helped on the front later in the stage. In the final we tried but we got a little bit boxed in, came a bit too late and then were held up with the crash that happened so we couldn’t really sprint for it. The teamwork today from the guys was really good though and we also took some more time in the GC to put us in a better position there, so we can take that with us into the next days.”
