TSG’s Ovechkin on the verge of history
Cycling Team’s (TSG) Russian rider Artem Ovechkin turned overnight star yesterday after conquering the queen stage of Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL), riding solo across the finish line to bag victory in the stage from Bentong to Cameron Highlands.
Shocking the favourites in taking the yellow jersey as the overall leader and the polka dot jersey for the mountains classification lead, with just three flat stages to go Ovechkin finds himself on the verge of history as the first rider from a Malaysian team to bag the overall title in Asia’s biggest race.
On the deciding stage of the race today, Ovechkin who was only signed by the team a week before the start of this race, met the criteria required by the team to achieve their targets, with the Kuala Terengganu-based team now also in the lead of the overall teams classification.
This was also the fourth change of the overall leadership in five stages of the race so far, with Ovechkin, winner of a stage and the general while riding for Gazprom-Rusvelo in the Tour of Antalya in Turkey before signing with TSG taking the two jerseys, while hot favourite for the overall lead Yevgeniy Gidich of Astana had to be satisfied with just the Asian riders’ jersey.
Astana sprinter and double stage winner Riccardo Minali retained the lead in the points classification with 40 points, four ahead of Stage 1 winner Andrea Guardini of Bardiani-CSF.
Ovechkin arrived at the finish of the 169km stage in 4 hours 24 minutes and 29 seconds, 28 seconds ahead of second placed Benjamin Dyball of St George Continental Cycling Team and 44s ahead of third placed Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier of Dimension Data.
With a total time of 21 hours 21 minutes and 34 seconds, Ovechkin sits atop the general classification with a 32-seconds lead over Dyball in second spot, while Mitchelton-BikeExchange’s Harrison Sweeny is third, 59 seconds adrift of the Russian.
LTdL continues with Stage 6, a short and flat stage from Tapah to Tanjung Malim today, covering 108.5km with the sprinters expected to do battle for the points classification.