Mirsamad Purseyedigolakhour (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) became a surprise winner of today's queen stage of the Tour de Langkawi when he held off Merhawi Kudus (MTN-Qhubeka) and Isaac Bolivar (UnitedHealthCare) on the final climb to the finish in the Genting Highlands. The Iranian made the selection when the peloton split early in the stage and saved his energy for the final leg sapping climb where he launched a powerful attack to take the stage and become the new overall leader in the race.

With 6 ProTeams and several pro continental teams in attendance, the queen stage of the Tour de Langkawi was expected to come down to a big showdown between some of the major stars. When the dust settled on the famous climb to the Genting Highlands, however, it was Iranian Mirsamad Purseyedigolakhour who had come away with the goods.

All was expected to come down to the final climb to the finish but the crucial selection actually happened much earlier in the stage .Purseyedigolakhour stayed aware in a very hectic opening phase when a 32-rider front group split off the front of the peloton and the Iranian made the selection.

With several of the big ProTeams having their main riders in the front group, they were keen to maintain the gap and the flat run-in to the final climb ended up as a fierce pursuit between the front group led by Belkin and Katusha and the main peloton led by Tinkoff-Saxo and Europcar. The front group emerged as the strongest and by the time they hit the final climb, they were still more than 2 minutes ahead.

On the steep slopes, the group exploded to pieces as a gradual elimination took place. A 12-rider front group emerged halfway up the climb and it continued to be whittled down as the climb went on.

Isaac Bolivar and Merhawi Kudus launched several strong attacks but were unable to get rid of Purseyedigolakhour who played it wisely. In the end, the Iranian made his own acceleration to finish wiht a 4-second gap over Kudus and a 5-second gap over Bolivar while Johan Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEDGE) made an impressive comeback from injury to take 4th.

With the win, Purseyedigolakhour also takes over the leader's jersey from Duber Quintero (Colombia) who lost more than 6 minutes. He now sits 8 seconds ahead of Kudus on GC with 6 more stages to come. As they are all expected to suit the sprinters, the Iranian may be up for a surprise win in the Malaysian race.

He faces his first jersey defence tomorrow when the race continue with a 139.9km stage from Karak to Rembau. It is almost entirely flat but two category 3 climbs inside the final 30km may challenge the sprinters and make for an exciting finale.

The queen stage

The 110.9km queen stage from Subang to Genting Highlands followed a very traditional Langkawi formula as the first part was a long flat run-in to the final HC climb to the finish. The ascent was split into two, with a category 1 climb being located at the midpoint before a short descent led to the final steep drag to the finish line.

The race was off to an extremely fast start as several riders were keen to be involved in the early breakaway. After 13km of racing, it was still all together but it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying.

A dangerous split

The first rider to get a significant gap was Omar Bertazzo (Androni) and he was later joined by Antoine Duchesne (Europcar), Youcef Reguigui (MTN Qhubeka), Anuar Manan (Terengganu), Elchin Asadov, and KOM and points leader Matthew Brammeier (both Synergy Baku). It appeared as though the sextet could be the break of the day but several riders were trying to bridge across.

A bit of reshuffling happened at the front and at the 19km mark a group of 17 riders had suddenly escaped. More riders bridged across to make it a 32-rider group and as most teams had a rider in the front group, they were suddenly way ahead of the peloton.

Strong climbers in the group

The group was made up of Theo Bos (Belkin), Jack Bobridge (Belkin), Steven Kruijswijk (Belkin), Chaves, Brett Lancaster (Orica-GreenEDGE), Petr Ignatenko (Katusha), Pavel Kochetkov (Katusha), Marco Haller (Katusha), Pavel Brutt (Katusha), Michael Kolar (Tinkoff-Saxo), Michael Valgren (Tinkoff-Saxo), Duchesne, Christophe Kern (Europcar), Robinson Chalapud (Colombia), Carlos Quintero (Colombia), Jeffry Romero (Colombia), Patrick Facchini (Androni), Bertazzo, Alessio Taliani (Androni), Gianfranco Zilioli (Androni), Jacques van Rensburg (MTN), Tsgabu Grmay (MTN), Kudus, Bolivar, Bradley White (UnitedHealthCare), Yonathan Monsalve (Yellowfluo), Luigi Miletta (YellowFluo), Thomas Rabou (OCBC), Junrong Ho (OCBC), Mehdi Sohrabi (Tabriz), Purseyedigolakhour, Ghaffari Vahid (Tabriz), Asadav, Brammeier, Tural Isgandarov (Synergy Baku), and Ariya Phounsavath (CCN). After 28km, they were already 3.30 ahead of the peloton in which Tinkoff-Saxo and later Europcar started to chase as their main riders Jesper Hansen and Natnael Berhane had both missed the split.

Belkin had their climber Kruijswijk in the move while Katusha had Ignatenko in there and as they both had several riders to support them, those teams were the driving forces in the break. For a long time, the gap was kept stable at around 3 minutes as the two groups were involved in a fierce battle that saw the riders cover more than 47km in the first hour.

Brammeier scores points

Brammeier beat White and Rabou at the first category 4 climb to extend his lead in the KOM classification and he was faster than Kruijswijk, Kochetkov, and Asadov in the first sprint to extend his lead in the points classification as well. In the second sprint, Sohrabi was the fastest, beating Brammeier, Kruijswijk, and Ho while Asadov took maximum points ahead of Sohrabi, Kruijswijk, and Bertazzo in the final one as Kruijswijk was clearly keen to score as many bonus seconds as possible.

The gap reached a maximum of 3.55 after 32km but the two chasing teams started to bring it down. Duchesne decided to drop back to the peloton to assist his teammates in the chase.

The chase is on

Having been down to 3.25, the gap went back up to 3.50 at the 50km mark but from there the chase started to have its effect. At the 67km mark, the advantage was down to 2.55 and after 75km, it was 2.20.

The road now started to point upwards and this spelled the end for sprinters Haller and Bos who had done a lot of work for their leaders. Asadov and Ho were the next to drop off as the gap was still 2.20 with 25km to go.

Brammeier falls off the pace

With several points in his pocket, Brammeier also fell off the pace as did Sohrabi, Romero and Rabou. The climbers were now riding hard in the front and had reopened their gap to 2.50 when the climb officially started.

A 16-rider group emerged on the lower slopes, with Bobridge, Kruijswijk, Chaves, Brutt, Ignatenko, Quintero, Zilioli, Kudus, Van Rensburg, Bolivar, Monsalve, Purseyedigolakhour, Ghaffari and Phounsavath all in the lead group. Meanwhile, race leader Duber Quintero was now in difficulty in the peloton.

A strong group of chasers

Some of the riders who had been caught out had to ride hard right from the bottom and so Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEDGE), Ghader Mizbani, Amir Koladhozagh (both Tabriz), and John Ebsen (CCN) both took off in pursuit. They were later joined by Natnael Berhane (Europcar), Jesper Hansen (Tinkoff-Saxo), race leader Quintero, John-Lee Augustyn (MTN), Louis Meintjes (MTN) and Eric Sheppard (OCBC) to form a select group of favourites.

Bolivar led Ghaffari, Phousavath, Bobridge, Kruijswijk, Monsalve, Zilioli, and Ignatenko across the line at the KOM sprint at the halfway point of the climb. They kept losing time to their chasers but with 5km to go they were still 1.35 ahead.

Bobridge drops off

The front group was gradually whittled down but inside the final kilometres, 11 were still in contention as Bobridge fell off the pace. Bolivar opened the action when he launched an attack and 3km from the line, he was 8 seconds ahead.

Purseyedigolakhour rejoined Bolivar and later Kudus also made the junction. In the end, the Iranian emerged as the strongest to take the biggest win of his career and set him up for what could easily be the overall win in the race.