The sixth day of racing at Le Tour de Langkawi saw a much flatter affair with a 123 kilometre route from Batu Pahat to Kulai on the menu. It was a fierce start to proceedings as riders and teams battling in the top ten of the GC looked to duke it out at the early intermediate sprint, before a break of four then went clear after that. Enzo Leijnse set the pace at the head of the peloton for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL, with the joint goal of ensuring the gap didn’t grow out too far so the team’s GC lead with Max Poole wouldn’t come under threat, but also so that other sprint teams would want to help out and bring things back together.
Leijnse did receive some help from a few teams but the quartet out front were strong and coming into the last ten kilometres the gap stood at the magical one minute mark. However, on the slightly rolling run-in two of the breakaway riders would hold on to fight it out for the stage win in a two-up sprint, while nine seconds behind in the peloton Casper van Uden produced a good sprint to take fifth place on the stage; while Poole retains the overall race lead heading into the weekend.
Van Uden said: “We tried to keep the break under control to protect Max’s GC and then set up a possible sprint. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite catch them but the boys were still able to deliver me in a decent position and I could give it a go from the bunch for fifth.”
