Sasha Weemaes (Human Powered Health) claimed his first professional victory on stage 7 of the Tour de Langkawi, outsprinting Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Gleb Syritsa (Astana Qazaqstan) to the line in Seremban.
The Belgian tried to latch onto De Kleijn’s leadout train but found himself on Syritsa’s wheel instead in the final 300 metres, only able to take victory thanks to his well-timed powerful kick and the slightly uphill rise to the line into a headwind.
Weemaes had come close throughout the week of racing with podium finishes on stages 1, 4 and 6, but today he finally got the win after showing strong and consistent form.
“I’m really happy about today, you see never give up,” said Weemaes. “Today everything worked perfectly in the situation, I’m really proud of the team.
“I wanted to choose his [De Kleijn’s] wheel, but it was really difficult as the Astana guy [Syritsa] had that wheel, but it was not bad because of the hard wind and then I took the slipstream of Arvid [de Kleijn] and in the last 10 metres, I could take a finish jump.”
Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost) again finished safely to hold onto his 49-second lead in the GC and is set to take overall victory after tomorrow’s flat stage into the Malaysian Capital city, Kuala Lumpur should he make it through the 156km route unscathed.
The other jersey wearers should also maintain their respective leads should they stay safe in the finish tomorrow, with De Kleijn leading the points classification by 15 points, his teammate Simon Pellaud leading the KOM classification by 12 points and Vadim Pronskiy (Astana Qazaqstan) taking a lead in the best Asian rider’s classification of over 2 minutes going into stage 8.
Stage 8 is the final day of racing in Malaysia and should be another chance for the sprinters to battle it out on a flat, 156.5km route starting in Setia Alam and finishing in Kuala Lumpur.
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