Battling Brammeier drifts down overall but retains jerseys on Genting Highlands

Irish national champion Matt Brammeier takes a well earned drink on another aggressive day at the Tour of Langkawi.

By Gerard Cromwell

Matt Brammeier survived a savage day of searing heat and soaring climbs at the Tour of Langkawi today to retain the lead in both the King of the Mountains and points classifications as the race finished atop the Hors Category climb to Genting Highlands.

For the third time this week, an aggressive Brammeier found himself in the early breakaway group, this time a large split of 35 riders, and wasted no time in adding to his red jersey tally by taking maximum points on the first climb of the day, the fourth category Bukit Cherakah.

Brammeier also earned five more points towards the blue jersey sprints competition when he won the first intermediate sprint of the day at Coalfield and then followed it up with second place and another three points in the next sprint at Paya Baras, before the front group disintegrated as the race headed towards the final climb of Genting Highlands.

As surprise Iranian stage winner Mirsamid Pourseyeddigolakhour of the Tabriz Petrochemical team, who is continuing his return from a two-year ban for using EPO, took over as race leader, Brammeier paid for his earlier efforts and finished almost 26 minutes down for 116^th place on the stage and drifted down the General classification.

But his aggression and determination paid dividends at the end of the stage as the Irish champion managed to retain both the blue jersey of points leader and red jersey of King of the Mountains.

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Brammeier holds a 10 point lead over former race leader Duber Quintero in the points competition and while he has just a slender one point lead in the mountains classification over Colombian climber Isaac Bolivar of the United Healthcare team, but knows the hardest stage is over and there will be more opportunities to notch up a few more points on the climbs to come.