Matt Brammeier has just two more climbs to survive before he can be crowned King of the Mountains at the 2014 Tour of Langkawi.
Matt Brammeier survived another crash marred sprint finish in Marang today to take 16th on stage eight of the Tour of Langkawi and hold onto his lead in the King of the Mountains competition for another day.
Although he didn’t score any points on today’s two fourth category climbs, Brammeier could relax as a four-man escape group went clear early on and mopped up all the points.
It contained Morgan Lamoisson of Europcar, Choon Huat Goh (OCBC Singapore), Zhi Hui Jiang of Giant Champion System and Brammeier’s Azeri teammate Elchin Asadov of Synergy Baku.
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Although this quartet built up a maximum lead of four minutes and ten seconds over the peloton, they were reeled in with just 10km remaining and the stage was set for a bunch sprint finish.
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A sharp left hand bend and a narrowing of the road with around 300 metres to go however caused a number of riders to crash in the gallop to the line, although Brammeier stayed upright to finish 16th on the stage.
Dutchman Theo Bos of Belkin took his third victory of the race ahead of Andrea Guardini of Astana and Androni Giacotolli’s Kenny Van Hummel .
Brammeier still holds a three point lead over United Healthcare’s Isaac Bolivar in the mountains classification but with two fourth category climbs remaining in this race, the Irish champion knows that the final destination of the red climber’s jersey will go down to the wire tomorrow.
There are four points on offer for the first man across the summit of each climb, with two points and one point respectively for second and third, meaning either Brammeier’s Synergy Baku squad will have to let a group of non contenders up the road to contest the climbs and take the points away from Bolivar or else Brammeier will have to win one and finish second in the other to earn the title of King of the Mountains at the 2014 Tour of Langkawi.
