Having been left with a deep wound in his foot, Andrea Guardini took to the start line of today's third stage of the Tour de Langkawi with plenty of uncertainty about whether he would be able to reach the finish. Less than 4 hours later, he stood on the top of the podium as stage winner after having only decided to do the sprint with 20km to go.

With 12 stage wins, Andrea Guardini started this year's edition of the Tour de Langkawi as the record holder of stage wins in the Malaysian race and the Italian had big ambitions of increasing his tally in the sprinter-friendly Malaysian race. However, it seemed that he would have to leave the race empty-handed when he went down in yesterday's big crash and was taken to hospital with a deep wound in his feet.

Guardini decided to take the start of today's stage but neither he nor his sports director Alexandr Shefer were confident that he would be able to reach the finish in Kuala Lumpur. The Italian had a painful start to the race and for a long time he thought about abandoning.

However, things started to improve as the day went on and with 20km to go, he told his lead-out man Ruslan Tleubayev that he was up for the sprint. And apparently, his injuries didn't slow him down at all as he powered down the finishing straight after opening a very long sprint, holding off Theo Bos (Belkin) to take his first win in almost a year.

“I told Ruslan with 20k to go that I felt good, that I would do the sprint," he said. "The pain at the start was really bad, and I thought I would get in the car and quit today, but ok - it hurts, but I’m in good condition, and it’s too late to turn back.

“I don’t need a leadout train, all I need is one guy to pick me up and drop me off in a good position, and Ruslan did a perfect job.

“Yesterday the crash happened behind Theo Bos – somebody hit a speedbump and lost his hands and all of the sprinters crashed – there are a lot of us here – my bike went left, I went right and I dragged my foot on the asphalt."

Guardini later explained to Cyclingnews that he had been reluctant not to benefit from his good form.

“I have good condition and with good condition I won’t go out of the race. Today was good,” he said. “In the first part of the stage I had a lot of pain in my foot, but after my legs and condition got better. I thought that I could sprint with 20km to go, after the climb I had good legs. I wanted this win, because Kuala Lumpur is special for me. I won here over the last three years and today it is special.”

Guardini will have to overcome more pain in tomorrow's queen stage before he gets a chance to sprint again on Monday.