Iranian rider Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour was the surprise winner of the queen stage in Tour de Langkawi. He was a part of the early breakaway, which lasted to the finish line. Pourseyedigolakhour won the stage ahead of Merhawi (MTN-Qhubeka) and Bolivar (UnitedHealthcare). He is now the leader of the GC and with flat stages to go, he is the favourite to take the overall win.

Pourseyedigolakhour was very happy after he crossed the finish line. He says he is very proud to be the first Asian rider to win the queen stage of the race.

"I am very happy to have achieved this win, especially since this is the most important stage of this race. Also no Asian rider has ever won this stage before, so this makes me very proud," said Pourseyedigolakhour, who also leads the Asian riders' classification.

In his home country Iran, there are a lot of mountains, which are good for the purpose of training. Pourseyedigolakhour is confident about protecting the GC lead.

"In my country we have a lot of mountains which are ideal for us to train and improve our climbing. So to prepare for this race we had worked really hard in Iran. Now our aim is to keep the jersey until the end. I think we have a strong team with experienced riders, so we are confident of being able to protect the lead in the coming six stages."

Pourseyedigolakhour isn’t unknown in the Asian cycling world. Last year, he won the Chinese tour Qinghai Lake. But he hadn’t imagined himself taking the queen stage of Tour de Langkawi.

“I won Qinghai Lake last year. I didn’t think I could win [Langkawi], I thought I’d be difficult, but my DS kept telling me to try. I attacked, I made the group,” said Pourseyedigolakhour to Cycling Weekly.

“It was hard to go with the MTN rider. He attacked. In the last three kilometres, he attacked again. The group couldn’t catch him. My DS told me just to follow the MTN rider because he knew saw that he was riding and spinning well. In the last few metres, I attacked for the win.”

But last year’s victory in Qinghai Lake was achieved right after Pourseyedigolakhour had returned to the cycling sport. In 2011, the Iranian was tested positive for EPO during the home country race Tour of Iran. Once again, this raises doubt about the rules of the biological passport. As Tabriz is a third division team, they are not tested by the use of the biological passport. A good example was Mustafa Sayar, who sensationally won the Tour of Turkey, but two months later in the Tour of Algeria, was tested positive and his title was taken by the UCI.

“This is not our problem, this is the UCI’s problem,” Pourseyedigolakhour told Cycling Weekly. “This is an UCI-Asia problem. I won Qinghai Lake. Every day, I was tested. People can speak, say what they want.”

Pourseyedigolakhour denies everything and says the team has been working hard to be in the race. They have been on a three-week training camp ahead of the race.

“I know about Turkey but we worked hard to be here,” said Pourseyedigolakhour. “We were training at altitude in the cold and went to the south for a three-week camp before this.”