King of the Mountains Matt Brammeier gets some advice from Synergy Baku team manager and ex-pro Jeremy Hunt in the team car at the Tour of Langkawi.
By Gerard Cromwell
Irish national champion Matt Brammeier held onto his red jersey of King of the Mountains at the Tour of Langkawi today as Dutchman Theo Bos of Belkin took his second stage win of the race in a mass bunch sprint into Pekan at the end of stage seven.
Bos outgunned Aidis Kruopis of Orica GreenEdge and Colombian Leonardo Duque of United Healthcare at the end of the 230km stage, with Brammeier crossing the line in 13th place.
But the longest stage of this year’s race didn’t pass without incident.
The downdraft from a low flying helicopter caused a crash in the peloton about 50km into proceedings that saw Katusha rider Pavel Kochetkov forced to leave the race with a broken collarbone.
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“A helicopter lifted a couple of poor guys off the road today and dropped them back down rather unforgivingly,” tweeted Brammeier afterwards.
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“I hope they’re not too broken.”
While Brammeier wasn’t involved in the four-man breakaway that led over the only climb of the day today, those that were - Eric Sheppard (OCBC Singapore), former race leader and stage one winner Duber Quintero (Colombia), Brett Lancaster of Orica-GreenEdge and Yellow Fluo’s Yonathan Monsalve - do not figure in the King of the Mountains competition and were no threat to Brammeier’s lead.
The Synergy Baku rider remains in red for another day, leading Isaac Bolivar of United Healthcare by three points, with three stages to go.
With no climbs on Sunday’s final stage, Brammeier has just two fourth category climbs tomorrow and another two on Saturday to contend with before he can be crowned overall winner of the Tour of Langkawi King of the Mountains classification.
Seen here with a bag of ice down the back of his jersey, Matt Brammeier only has to stay cool for two more days and four more climbs to keep his red jersey.
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