Tinkoff-Saxo put great effort into securing a spot in the breakaway group during stage 5 of Tour de Langkawi. But the effort was to no avail, as the more prominent teams looked to each other to make sure that no competing riders made it into the big break of the day, which eventually made it to the finish line 13 minutes ahead of the peloton.
 
Giving the lowdown on the team’s efforts on stage 5, Tinkoff-Saxo DS Tristan Hoffman says:
 
“Today was really not a good day for us. The guys made a big effort to get into the breakaway, as we sensed that this could be one of those days, where the peloton eases up a bit and the break actually makes it to the finish line, which it did”.
 
“However, our guys were unable to form a breakaway, as all the big teams - such as Sky, Astana, Orica-GreenEdge and us - were chasing down each other, because no one wanted to allow a well-placed rider to get into the break”, adds Tristan Hoffman after the stage finish.

Instead a big breakaway consisting of riders from smaller teams created a big gap to the peloton, where none of the teams without riders in the break wanted to take up position at the front of the bunch. After 200km of riding, the breakaway reached the finish line in Kuantan, where Joon Yong Seo from Team KSPO managed to secure the win with 13 seconds down to his breakaway companions.
 
According to Tristan Hoffman, Tinkoff-Saxo will have to try harder on tomorrow’s stage, where the riders face a short and expectedly fast 97km stage.
 
“I saw that the guys tried hard to make it into the breakaway today and the tactical situation was difficult. But we will just have to try harder, as we really can’t decide how the other teams are going to ride. This is the situation, the guys are in good shape and we’ll continue to search for a great result throughout the race. The biggest opportunities will come on stage 7, but we’ll have to be attentive tomorrow as well”, finishes Tristan Hoffman.