One day after losing the leader’s jersery, Andrea Guardini (Astana) was back in flatter terrain on stage 4 of the Tour de Langkawi and by winning the bunch sprint he confirmed his status as the fastest rider in the race. The Italian beat his compatriot Jakob Mareczko (Southeast) and Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEDGE) who defended his overall lead.

Having dominated the bunch sprints in the first two days of the Tour de Langkawi, Andrea Guardini took a beating yesterday when Orica-GreenEDGE managed to distance him on an early climb before delivering their fast man Caleb Ewan to a sprint win. Having rolled across the line 24 minutes adrift, the Italian is out of the battle for the overall and so he lined up for today’s flat fourth stage determined to get his revenge.

Going into the stage with a record 16 stage wins in the Malaysian race on his palmares, Guardini has been very hard to beat in Asia’s biggest bike race and it seems that nothing is different in 2015. When the race again came down to the expected bunch sprint, the Italian again turned out to be the fastest.

For the first time in this year’s race, Ewan wasn’t his nearest challenger. Instead, it was the highly talented Jakub Marezcko who is growing into a top sprinter under the tutelage of Alessandro Petacchi at the Southeast team while Ewan had to settle for third.

As in the past sprint stages, it took a concerted effort from Orica-GreenEDGE and Astana to bring back a very strong 6-rider breakaway that had taken off after a very fast start to the stage. With 11km to go, they still enjoyed an advantage of 1.20 and with small 6-rider teams in the race, it seemed that they had a chance of staying away.

However, Androni and MTN-Qhubeka also came to the fore to contribute to the pace-setting and with 2km to go, it was over for the final escapee, Jonathan Clarke (Unitedhealthcare). Hence, it came back to the expected bunch sprint where Guardini was the fastest.

With the third place, Ewan extended his overall lead over Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka) to 17 seconds and he should get another chance to go for glory in tomorrow’s stage. The stage is almost entirely flat with just a single category 4 climb but the riders will go up a small uncategorized ascent inside the final 10km which may put some of the pure sprinters into difficulty.

A flat stage

After the selective third stage, the sprinters were again expected to shine in stage 4 which brought the riders over 165.4km from Kora Bharu to Kuala Berang. With only a single category 4 climb 42.3km from the finish, most of the stage was flat and the terrain offered very few challenges.

The riders took the start in the usual very hot and humid conditions, with Gao Zhikang (Hengxiang) being the only non-starter. The Chinese crashed two days ago and has been unable to recover from his injuries.

A very fast start

As usual in Langkawi, the race got off to an impressively fast start with lots of attacks and for a long time, it was impossible for anyone to escape. After 26km of racing, the race was still together.

2km later, the first promising move of 15 riders was formed but that was too dangerous for the sprint teams. Instead, it was Jonathan Clarke (Unitedhealthcare), Pierre-Luc Perichon (Bretagne), Elchin Asadov (Synergy Baku), Jamalidin Novardianto (Pegasus) and Vladimir Gusev (Skydive) who got clear while the peloton finally took a small breather.

Bonus seconds for Perichon

Meiyin Wang (Hengxiang) and Nazim Bakirci (Torku) tried to join them while Joon Yong Seo (KSPO) was a lone chase a little further back. The latter was brought back by the peloton while the former two managed to join the leader.

When Perichon beat Novaridanto, Bakirci and Clarke and in the first intermediate sprint at the 36km mark, the gap was 1.15 and it continued to grow rapidly. After 41km of racing, it was 4.30 and when Perichin beat Asadov, Novardianto and Gusev in the second intermediate sprint, it was 5.05.

Perichon waits for the peloton

Perichon was only 22 seconds behind Ewan in the overall standings and with 6 bonus seconds in his pocket, he decided to wait for the peloton. The peloton had now taken control of the situation and they kept the gap stable around 4.40 for some time.

Novardianto beat Asadov, Wang and Gusev in the final intermediate sprint at the 93km mark where the gap was 4.20 and now the peloton upped the pace. After 114km of racing, it was 3.25 as Orica-GreenEDGE and Astana were working hard in the peloton.

The chase gets organized

Novardianto beat Wang and Clarke in the only KOM sprint where the gap was down to 3 minutes. Androni were now also contributing to the chase and with 20km to go, they had brought the gap down to 2 minutes.

With 11km to go, the escapees were still 1.20 ahead and now MTN-Qhubeka were also working hard. Their effort saw the gap drop to 30 seconds with 7km to go and this was the single for Clarke to take a solo flyer. The Australian was 15 seconds ahead with 4km to go but 2km later he was brought back and instead it was another win for Guardini.