The queen stage of the Malaysian race Tour de Langkawi was a 110 km long stage with a summit finish to Genting Highlands. The winner of today’s stage was the Iranian rider Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour of Tabriz Petrochemical Team. Tinkoff-Saxo tried to catch the breakaway, but didn’t succeed and finished behind the leading groups.

A huge group containing 30 riders including Tinkoff-Saxo rider Michael Valgren escaped from the peloton early in the race. Different teams took the lead in the peloton and Tinkoff-Saxo was one of them. The peloton railed in some of the riders, but they weren’t able to catch all the riders from the break. Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour was the fastest rider on the finish line.

Tinkoff-Saxo DS Tristan Hoffman says the team tried to catch the breakaway with Pawl Poljanski and Jesper Hansen, but the breakaway was simply too fast and the best Tinkoff-Saxo rider was Jesper Hansen finishing 18th on the stage. He is now 19th in the GC.

“We had only one rider in the breakaway and we decided to help minimize the gap so everyone but Pawel (Poljanski) and Jesper (Hansen) took part of the chase. We shaved down the gap from 8 to about 4 minutes and left Jesper in a small chase group behind the escapees and on the slope, Jesper managed to sweep up the main part of the break. But unfortunately, we never caught the front. The guys put in a great effort both on the flat part of the stage and Jesper showed some great climbing but obviously, it wasn’t enough to compete for the win today. Now, we’re taking on another series of flat stages where we’ll support Michael (Kolar) in the bunch sprints.”