Theo Bos continued his domination of the Tour de Langkawi sprint when the Dutchman won his third consecutive bunch kick in today's 9th and penultimate stage of the Malaysian race. The Dutchman beat Andrea Guardini (Astana) and Aidis Kruopis (Orica-GreenEDGE) into the minor podium spots while Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour (Tabriz) had another comfortable day in the saddle to defend his overall lead with just one more stage to go.

At the end of last season, Theo Bos positioned himself well as the king of the Asian sprints when he completely dominated the Tour of Hainan, winning 6 out of 9 stages in the Chinese race. This year he has continued where he left off in 2013 as he has been equally dominant in the Tour de Langkawi.

Having already won stage 2 and the bunch sprints on the two previous stages, Bos had already reached his pre-race target of three stage wins but he had made it clear that he was eager to score even more. Today he lived up to his promises when he won his third consecutive stage in another bunch sprint.

The stage was a short, very straightforward sprint stage where the Tabriz team of race leader Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour held a two-rider breakaway that consisted of two rather dangerous riders, under control until the sprint teams brought things back together for the expected bunch kick. Again Bos was the fastest in the final dash to the line and for the second day in a row, Andrea Guardini, the most successful rider in the Langkawi history, had to settle for 2nd, with points leader Aidis Kruopis rounding out the podium.

With Michael Kolar (Tinkoff-Saxo) finishing down in 6th, Kruopis extended his narrow lead in the points competition from 2 to 3 points - Kolar had scored 2 points in an intermediate sprint - but the blue jersey is still very much up for grabs in tomorrow's final stage. That can't be said of the yellow one though as Pourseyedigolakhour held off the threats from Yonathan Monsalve (YellowFluo) and Carlos Quintero (Colombia) who made up the early break, to defend his 8-second lead of Merhawi Kudus (MTN-Qhubeka). Quintero managed to move into 10th on GC by virtue of bonus seconds scored in the intermediate sprints, relegating Louis Meintjes (MTN-Qhubeka) to 11th.

Tomorrow the race comes to its conclusion with a short 114.7km stage from Tasik Kenyir to Kuala Terengganu. There are no categorized climbs on the flat stage and it is almost guaranteed to end in a bunch sprint where Bos has the chance to make it five out of ten stages in the Malaysian race.

A short, flat stage

After three consecutive bunch sprints, the sprinters were expected to continue their time in the spotlight in today's short 109.7km penultimate stage that brought the riders from Bandar Permaisuri to Kuala Terengganu. Two category four climbs in the early part of the stage would bring the battle for the mountains jersey to a close but otherwise the roads were entirely flat.

After yesterday's easy start where the break had escaped almost straight from the gun, the beginning of today's stage was more animated as several riders were hopeful that a break could stay away on this short stage. The first rider to give it  a go was from Hong Kong but he was quickly reeled in.

The break is formed

The first riders to get a significant gap were Jeffry Romero (Colombia) and Carlos Alzate (UnitedHealthCare) who were 12 second ahead of the peloton after 7km of racing. However, the two fast riders were reeled in and instead Quintero and Monsalve took off.

At the 14km mark, the duo were 15 seconds ahead while Jason Christie (CCN) had set off in pursuit. Burr Ho (Hong Kong) also tried to bridge across and he quickly joined Christie to form a chase duo while Pourseyedigolakhour's Tabriz team took control of the peloton.

Quintero scores bonus seconds

Tabriz were reluctant to let two dangerous riders go up the road and so the gap stayed below the 30-second mark for some time. Meanwhile, Quintero scored crucial bonus seconds when he beat Monsalve in the first intermediate sprint while Christie led Ho across the line a little later.

At the first climb after 25km of racing, Monsalve was first across the line ahead of Quintero and Ho and 5km further up the road, the front duo had extended their advantage to 1.35.  The chasers kept losing time and were now 48 seconds behind and as that gap had grown to 1.30 at the 36km mark, they decided to fall back to the peloton.

The gap is stable

Before that happened, Ho had taken third in the final KOM sprint of the race behind Monsalve and Quintero, meaning that KOM leader Matthew Brammeier sealed his win in the competition provided that he finishes the race within the time limit.

At the 44km mark, the gap reached its maximum of 2 minutes, meaning that Quintero who had started the day 1.46 behind Pourseyedigolakhour was now the virtual lead. This prompted Tabriz to increase the pace and they kept the gap between 1.30 and 2.00 for several kilometres.

Kolar scores points

Tinkoff-Saxo were keen to score a few points in the second intermediate sprint where Quintero had again beaten Monsalve to score another 3 bonus seconds. The team made sure that Michael Kolar crossed the line in 3rd ahead of his teammate Michael Valgren, meaning that the Slovakian sprinter w as now equal with Kruopis in the points competition.

The sprint action had brought the gap down to 1.16 when 36km still remained but as the peloton took a short breather, it was quickly back up to 1.40. Androni and Astana now decided that it was time to catch the break as they wanted to set up previous stage winners Kenny Van Hummel and Guardini for the sprint and they started to bring down the gap.

Brammeier takes off

Inside the final 25km, the gap was down to 40 seconds and Brammeier now decided that it was time to celebrate his KOM win by making a solo attack. He stayed away for a little while before being brought back by the peloton.

Belkin were now also contributing to the pace-setting but the front duo managed to stay clear to the final intermediate sprint 14km from the finish where Quintero again scored maximum points and bonus seconds. With the sprint coming close to the finish, Kolar and Kruopis decided not to contest it and it was hard workers Arman Kamyshev (Astana) and Rick Flens (Belkin) who took 3rd and 4th.

The break is caught

With 12km to go, the gap was down to 22 seconds but 3km further up the road, it was all over for the front duo. This prompted Fauzan Lutfi (Malaysia) to give it a late go and he stayed clear for a bit more than a kilometre before being reeled in.

Europcar had now taken control of the peloton, with Natnael Berhane working for his sprinter Yannick Martinez. With 4km to go, a Colombia rider tried to get clear but Belkin had now assued their position on the front and quickly neutralized the move.

A crash happened in the middle of the peloton but it didn't disturb the Dutch team which again did a very smooth lead-out. In the end, Bos finished off the work in the perfect way when he added a fourth win to his palmares.