ANOTHER FINE RACE: Team Corbusier’s Paul van der Ploeg (centre) sprints to the finish line with other riders during the fourth stage of Jelajah 1Malaysia yesterday. — Bernama photo
KUCHING: Team Corbusier’s Paul van der Ploeg continued his fine showing at the Jelajah 1Malaysia with a sixth place finish in the tour’s fourth stage.
Saturday’s stage, the longest in the tour, saw the riders in a 206.3km journey from Angsana, Johor Bahru to Bukit Katil, Melaka.
Ploeg began the day in 17th place, 2:35 down from yellow jersey wearer Loh Sea Keong of Team OCBC Singapore.
As expected, it was a stage full of attacks as yellow jersey aspirants try to take time from OCBC’ Loh.
At one point, Ronald Oranza of LBC-MVPSF Cycling Pilipinas was the virtual race leader when the lead group build a lead of 4:22 over the peloton with 96km to go.
However, the OCBC team were in no mood to relinquish the yellow jersey and the escapees were swallowed up by the peloton at the 161km mark. There would be more attacks but the peloton were not going to let any of them have even a chance of success.
The ensuing bunch sprint saw Huon Salmon-Gensys’ Anthony Giacoppo edge out Friday’s stage winner Hariff Salleh of TSG to win in a time of 5:03:23.
All the finishers in the main peloton were credited with the same finishing time.
“We managed to get into a breakaway 50km before the finish but the peloton caught us just 10km from the finish,” said Corbusier captain Laurel Lauridsen Adrian, in a phone interview from the race finish at Melaka.
Laurel was in the break with teammate Ploeg.
“I think if the yellow jersey were in the break, we might have had a chance of succeeding,” said Laurel.
Ploeg is now in 18th place, 2:32 down from Loh, who maintained his hold on the race’ leadership with the same 14secs lead he had over Polygon Sweet Nice’ Sergey Kuzmin since he donned yellow on Thursday.
The big Aussie rider had a notable success on Saturday when he won the first intermediate sprint, beating arch nemesis Harrif, who had beaten him in two sprints previously.
With just one stage before the race ends on Sunday at Putrajaya, Corbusier will look to win one of the several jerseys on offer as their chance of a top ten general classification finish is slim to none.
“We are going to try to help Paul and Azrul to win the King of the Mountain Jersey,” said Laurel.
Sunday’s final 169.8km stage from Melaka to Putrajaya will feature a demanding 212m Category 3 climb at Bukit Manting, 119.7km into the race.
TSG’s Zamri Salleh is current the red jersey holder with nine points while Ploeg is in fifth spot with just two points.
Ploeg is also in third spot in the green jersey competition with 37points but TSG’s Harrif is way ahead with 54points.
“I don’t know if we can win the red jersey but we will try our best and, hopefully, make it happen,” said Laurel.