Tinkoff-Saxo’s Michael Kolar showed signs of improvement on today’s stage of Tour de Langkawi after illness in the early season set his preparations back. He finished 7th in today’s short, sprint stage and now looks ahead to the GC-battle tomorrow - a stage, which DS Tristan Hoffman sees as decisive.
 
“It’s our d-day tomorrow, where we’ll have to fight for the GC. It will be harder to create time gaps on the new climb to Fraser’s Hill that replaced the traditional climb to Genting Highland, but it seems like Edward Beltran and Jesper Hansen, who are our GC captains, are in good shape”, says Tristan Hoffman, who adds that Tinkoff-Saxo will have to be attentive not to let a big breakaway get away:
 
“Last year, a big group made it to the final climb with a big advantage, so our guys will probably participate in controlling the race and if a big group breaks away, we’ll have to get a guy up there”.

 
Today’s stage 6 from Maran to Karak took the riders along a fast 96,6km parcours, which ended in a bunch sprint decision, where Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) won the burst for the line with Michael Kolar coming in at 7th place.
 
“Today was a short and fast stage, where we stayed at the front of the peloton most of the day. It was my responsibility to do the sprint, so the boys did a good job in setting the sprint up for me. Pavel Brutt and Nikolay Trusov worked to position me but I lacked a bit of final punch on the last few hundred meters”, says Michael Kolar, who’s regaining shape after suffering an early season setback due to illness.
 
“My shape is slowly getting better after I was sick during Tour Down Under, which disturbed my preparations. It’s not exactly how I wanted and unfortunately I’ve also had two crashes here at Tour de Langkawi, which always disrupts the rhythm. But I’m improving and, hopefully, I won’t have more bad luck”, concludes Michael Kolar.