National road race champion Matt Brammeier signs in for another day in the red jersey of King of the Mountains at the Tour of Langkawi today.
Matt Brammeier has retained his lead in the King of the Mountains competition at the Tour of Langkawi today as Dutchman Kenny Van Hummel took stage six in a mass sprint to the line in Pontian.
The 32-year old fast man beat Orica-GreenEdge's Aidis Kroupis and UnitedHealthcare's Ken Hanson to the line to snatch the first win of the year for his new Androni Giacotolli Venezuela team.
Brammeier was again involved in the early action on the stage, taking second place on the second climb of the day; the fourth category ascent of Parit Yaani. That gave him two more points towards the mountains classification and sees him remain the red jersey for another day.
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The Irish champion now leads UnitedHealthcare’s Isaac Boliva by three points in that competition, with five mainly flat stages remaining.
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Finishing just outside the points on the line for 18th on the stage, Brammeier dropped to fifth in the blue jersey points competition and is now eight points off the lead of Dutchman Thomas Rabou. The Irishman had held that jersey for a number of days and was level on points with Rabou at the start today.
Although Rabour, riding for the OCBC Singapore team, also failed to score points at the finish, he managed to harvest five more points in the intermediate sprints along the way thanks to a mid stage escape in a four man group, which also contained Brammeier’s Synergy Baku teammate Elchin Asadov.
There was no change in the overall standings, with Iranian rider Mirsad Pourseyedigolakhour of Tabriz Petrochemical holding an eight second lead over Eritrean rider Merhawi Kudus of MTN Qhubeka with Bolivar third at 11 seconds.
Irish champion Matt Brammeier relaxes with his new Synergy Baku team mates before the start of the race today.
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