Tabriz Petrochemical Cycling Team

Make it a double, Mr.Erler

Australian bags second while Erler holds onto yellow

Michael Matthews maintained his reign as the Tour de Langkawi's quickest man this afternoon as the Australian took out yet another bunch sprint to make it two wins from three stages at this year's edition of the race.

Jayco-Skins' 'stylin maestro' won with apparent ease, again beating the likes of Alex Candelario (Kelly Benefit Strategies) and ISD-Neri's Ukranian powerhouse Dmytro Grabovskyy, who finished second and third respectively. Asia's leading sprint light Anuar Manan added another top five performance to his tally, finishing fourth in front of former ProTour rider René Hasselbacher (Corratec-Vorarlberg).

With the burden of the overall race lead lifted yesterday Matthews could focus on his placing in the sprint classification, taking on Anuar for the intermediate sprints throughout the 145.6km from Pekan to Mersing. It created two races within the stage, with Matthews the victor on the bigger occasion.

"It was different to the first one," Matthews said of his second victory. "I wasn't feeling that good today in the sprints and Anuar kept rolling me so I wasn't too confident. In the last couple of kilometres I started feeling a bit better and I got a good leadout and came away with the win.

"I had a couple of cracks at the first two [intermediate] sprints but I wasn't feeling too good so I thought I'd save a bit of energy for the final sprint and see how I went in that because there are more points in the final sprint than the primes throughout the race. I thought I'd have a go and try to win that one to get more points towards the green jersey," Matthews explained.

Knowing their man was primed for another victory, Matthews' Jayco-Skins teammates ensured the 19-year-old Canberran was in a position to maximise his return from the stage. Matthews was quick to praise the efforts of the six riders who worked throughout the day.

"The guys were awesome today - during the first 70km when all the breaks were going they were working really hard, getting me bottles and making sure I wasn't doing anything then they got me up to that prime sprint," he explained.

"In the last 20km they were on the front driving it to spread the bunch out so I could have a good sprint at the finish. I was feeling pretty fresh at the end so I had a good sprint and it paid off for the boys."

Despite showing he's clearly the fastest man in the pack over the first three days of the 15th Tour de Langkawi, Matthews was playing down his chances of further success. "I'll stick with these two first and see what happens in the next couple of days," he said.

His fourth place in yesterday's stage to Chukai may not have netted him much reward, although any psychological boost on offer may have added to his performance in today's finishing sprint after a mostly flat romp along the coastline.

"Yesterday's sprint was probably harder than the sprint on the first day; I was trying to get points for the sprint jersey and time bonuses so there was a bit of pressure on me to win the bunch kick, more so than the first stage. I wouldn't say I'm the fastest guy here, I've probably had the most luck in the last couple of sprints, I guess. And I've just felt the best," he said.

Making your own way there

Overall race leader Tobias Erler (Tabriz Petrochemical) left Pekan with a five-second advantage over Drapac-Porsche's David Pell. And while the German was intent on defending his lead, he had to do it the hard way.

With limited chances for a break to be successful, those with ambitions of escaping were kept in check by the affable rider from Tabriz Petrochemical, who knows he will also have plenty of work to do for teammates Ghader Mizbani and Hossein Askari up the Genting climb on Saturday.

"Today was a really hard day for me in the first 70km - almost harder than yesterday," said Erler, who finished the stage in ninth and held onto his lead, which still sits at five seconds over Drapac-Porsche's David Pell. The Australian has a reputation in his home country for being a rider capable of spending the day in a break - evidenced yesterday - and could stand a chance at netting the leader's jersey should he try his luck again in an escape.

Matthews and Erler attested to the fact that the opening 70km of today's stage was full of attacking riding, with the machinations of a possible break playing out over very flat, smooth roads out of Pekan - difficult conditions for an escape to succeed.

"I hoped to have it easier but it was quite a hard job to defend the yellow jersey and it took almost 70km before one rider went in a break," Erler continued.

"The first 70 kilometres were quite hard and I just jumped across to many groups and I wanted to control [the race] even if it was just four or five guys trying to get away, so there would be a bunch sprint in the end. Even after the four or five guys went away somebody started to attack again then the break came back and it was all together again," he said.

Showing he was serious about holding onto the race lead during the sprint stages, Erler even found himself in a good position to contest the sprint, although he admitted that a final push to the line was asking a little too much. "Usually I'm not bad at sprinting - I was going to do the leadout on the first day for my teammate [Mehdi Sohrabi] but we lost each other in the wrong place and dropped outside 30th position," he explained.

"Today I sent a message [to the directeur sportif] with 500m to go, 'This is a good finish for me' but with 300m to go it was just running away from me; I did so much in the first 70km that I didn't feel really fresh. The positioning was good but the legs were not so good."

There will be another chance to the sprinters to either make amends or continue their successful run with 163.5 kilometres from Mersing to Parit Sulong.