Le Tour de Langkawi: Yellow jersey for Astana's Minali after stage 2
It was a hard stage with the first category climb at the beginning and totally 208.3 km of racing, which was finished with a beautiful sprint won by the young rider of Astana Pro Team.
"Today was a very hard day - it was hot and the climb at the beginning of the stage was very long. I have dropped out during the climb, but at the downhill, my teammate and me managed to come back to the first group. In the final, I had a super team who helped me to finish first and I'm very happy with my victory," said Riccardo Minali after the finish.
During the long climb, leader of the race Italian Andrea Guardini has also dropped out. After Minali return to the first group, Astana Pro Team riders set a high pace to increase the gap between the peloton and the yellow jersey.
Finally, after stage victory, Minali also overtakes the yellow jersey as a new leader of the race and green jersey as the best rider in point classification.
The good result today also showed young Kazakh rider Evgeniy Gidich, who has finished fourth and rose to the sixth place of the GC, 7 seconds behind his teammate Minali.
"The climb was very hard, but finally, we did it. Today I finished at the fourth place and took some seconds at the intermediate sprints. I'm very satisfied with my race today and happy for the victory of my teammate. We have another stages ahead and a lot of opportunities to fight for new victories and for GC, as well," said Evgeniy Gidich after the stage.
The riders have six more stages to go, including important mountain stage at the fourth day of competition in hot Malaysia.
"Today we managed to realize all the plans that we have. We set a good temp after the climb to isolate leader of the race, took additional seconds at the intermediate sprints, and finally, won the stage. Excellent work for all the team," concluded sports director Sergey Yakovlev.