MELAKA, Malaysia–Arvid De Kleijn of Tudor Pro Cycling Team again displayed his vaunted sprint prowess and won his second stage in a mass finish at the Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi on Thursday.
All the riders finished with identical time of 4 hours 08.9 minutes in concluding the 174.7-kilometer stage that took the peloton on mostly flat roads from Karak to this historic city.
Simon Carr of EF Education, who grabbed the overall individual leadership in the previous Genting killer stage, comfortably hung on at the top with an aggregate clocking of 23 hours 33.29 seconds, just 49 seconds faster than teammate Alexander Cepeda Ortiz.
The Filipino riders of 7- Eleven- Cliqq-Air21-RoadbikePhilippines, now reduced to just four, also came along with the big bunch.
Joshua Pascual went back to Manila to rejoin the national team, which is leaving on Monday to compete in the Hangzhou Asian Games while Junreck Carcueva was disqualified due to technicality.
Team captain Ryan Tugawin, Nichol Pareja, Ismael Grospe and Renz Michael Bondoc will continue to chase for glory in stage 7 from Muar to Seremban–123.8 km battle on flat roads with three sprint honors at stake.
But the penultimate stage is not expected to stir major shakeup in the overall standings that were shaped two days ago in the killer Genting Highlands stage.