Yesterday Marco Haller was left frustrated when a puncture derailed his plans to sprint in the Tour de Langkawi. Today the Katusha sprinter proved that he has the speed to fight with the best when he was the first rider behind the Belkin duo of Theo Bos and Graeme Brown in today's crash-marred sprint.

Marco Haller from the Russian WorldTour team Katusha took the 3rd podium place today in the second stage of Le Tour de Langkawi.

"I am very satisfied with today’s result," he said. "After yesterday's bad luck, I wanted very much to show myself today and to get a good result. It was a very hot day, but the stage was not so hard. The team was perfect; I had a huge support during the whole day, so I am glad to finish in the top 3. I hope I will manage to fight for the stage victory in the next few days."

The 132.5km second stage from Sungai Petani to Taiping was characterized by a breakaway of 6 riders, which was completely neutralized with only 5 km to go. Pavel Brutt made an attack with only a few km to go, but was caught by the peloton.

Finally, the stage finished with a bunch sprint, won by Theo Bos from Belkin, followed by his teammate Graeme Brown and Katusha’s Marco Haller. Another Katusha Team rider Pavel Kochetkov finished 10th.

The big crash happened inside the final kilometre and Katusha’s second sprinter Aleksandr Porsev was involved, albeit without any serious injures.

The third place in today’s stage was the first podium place for Marco Haller in this season.

"Today we had the same strategy as yesterday – we worked for Marco Haller and the final bunch sprint," manager Viacheslav Ekimov said. "Yesterday Marco had a bad luck with that puncture, while today everything was ok. Marco took part in the sprint and finished 3rd. That’s avery good result. The team will fight for some more results in the next days."

The overall leader of Le Tour de Langkawi is Duber Quintero from Colombia. Pavel Kochetkov is the best Katusha rider in 18th place, 1.37 behind the leader.

Tomorrow the 166.5km stage from Kampar to Kuala Lumpur could be another one for the sprinters.