An exhausted Matt Brammeier takes a well earned breather after an aggressive third stage at the Tour of Langkawi today saw him move up to second place overall.
By Gerard Cromwell
Another aggressive performance from Matt Brammeier today saw the national road race champion move into second place overall at the Tour of Langkawi by the end of the third stage to Kuala Lumpur.
Brammeier went clear early on, infiltrating a six man move containing Bradley White (UnitedHealthcare), Patrick Facchini (Androni Giocattoli-Venuzuela), Jacque Janse van Rensburg (MTN-Qhubeka), Saufi Mat Senan (Terengganu) and Thomas Rabou of OCBC Singapore with this group building up a maximum lead of five and a half minutes.
During his escape, Brammeier took the first intermediate sprint of the day in Bido, gaining three seconds time bonus, and was third in the next two sprints gaining a further two seconds to leapfrog over Aussie Jonathon Clarke of United Healthcare into second place overall by the end of the stage.
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First across the summit of both fourth category climbs at Trolak and Selayang, an aggressive Brammeier also consolidated his lead in the King of the Mountains competition today, and now leads the climber’s classification by 20 points from Colombian race leader Duber Quintero.
“I felt pretty good at the start, so I thought I'd give it a go in the breakaway again,” Brammeier said afterwards.
“I managed to slip into the day's break and took some more points in the KOM competition. We played a few games with the chasing group behind and at one point it looked like we could go all the way to the finish. In the end, after the last climb, the gap wasn't quite big enough so I sat up and waited for the chasing group.”
Brammeier’s intermediate sprinting also earned him the blue jersey of points leader by the end of the stage, the Synergy Baku rider holding a two point lead over Quintero and Greek sprinter Aidis Kruopis of Orica GreenEdge after a very productive day at the office.
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“I finished the day with a few more points in the KOM and moved up a spot in GC and also took the lead in the points competition," he said afterwards.
"So I'm pretty satisfied.”
With the break reeled in before the line, Italian sprinter Andrea Guardini, despite suffering the after effects of a crash yesterday, outsprinted Theo Bos of Belkin and Yannick Martinez of Europcar while Quintero held onto his yellow jersey by 19 seconds with Brammeier now second overall.
Tomorrow's fourth stage however finishes atop the 1,625m high Hors category climb of Genting Highlands and should see a big shake up in the general classification.
Brammeier, wearing the red jersey of King of the Mountains, drives the break along on today's third stage.
A productive day in the saddle saw Brammeier also earn the blue jersey of points leader in Langkawi today for the Synergy Baku team.
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