Andrea Guardini failed to take his second win in the Tour de Langkawi when today's sixth stage was decided in a bunch sprint. The Italian chose to stay on the wheel of his archrival Theo Bos but as the Dutchman got boxed in, the Astana sprinter could only manage 7th.
Prior to the Tour de Langkawi, the many expected sprint battles in the Malaysian race were described as a duel between Theo Bos (Belkin) and Astana's Andrea Guardini. Unsurprisingly, the first two sprint stages were won by those two riders, with Bos winning stage 2 and Guardini triumphing one day later.
The duo have missed a couple of opportunities to sprint as successful breakaways have stayed away on two occasions but today they were back in the mix when the sixth stage came down to a bunch sprint. When the dust settled, however, Guardini was to be found back in 7th while Bos could only manage 13th.
Guardini had had all his eyes on his main rival but as the Belkin train had the rare experience of getting boxed in, this proved to be a costly decision.
“The team picked me up from 25k to go to 3k to go – brought us all back together for the sprint – but I followed Theo Bos for the finish and we got surrounded by other teams at 2k and they blocked us in," Guardini said. "Nothing you could do about it – we were so far back Bos didn’t even try.”
Guardini may get another chance tomorrow if the sprint teams can keep things together on the long 230km flat seventh stage.
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