A hard summit finish to Genting Highlands and a short, explosive sprint stage that delivered our team’s best result of the race so far.
Stage 5: Tapah to Genting Highlands (125.7 km)
Stage 5 of the 2026 Tour de Langkawi was a relatively short but very hard day from Tapah to the summit of Genting Highlands. 125.7 kilometres finishing with a long, tough climb in the heat and humidity.
Another good day. Not a long day because it was relatively short actually, but yeah, we’re having a great time. Some of the hotels are iffy and then some are pretty good, so you take the good with the bad I suppose.
Today was an interesting day. We really wanted to be active from the very start with Juan Guillermo (MARTINEZ) and Matthew (PEACE) because we lost our GC rider Mattia (GAFFURI), who broke his hand unfortunately. So our only option now is to really hunt for a stage.
We thought by putting one of us in the breakaway, one of our big guys, as in sprinters like myself, Christiaan (VAN REES) or Roy (HOOGENDOORN), then that break would have a good chance of going to the end.
By God we tried hard! I think we might have tried 28 times but the 29th was the one that went away! Yeah, that’s bike racing and you just have to accept it.
We knew the break was gone. It was a really strong break with my ex-teammate Nico (Nicolas BREUILLARD) in it. He did a super ride to end up winning the stage. As it was a summit finish it would have suited him perfectly.
We rode all the way into the base of the climb and it was probably the next 20 kilometres of some of the hardest I’ve done in a long time. It just felt like a climb that was never going to end with the heat and the humidity and everything else. Pretty rough.
A good day nonetheless. Another day in the saddle and another day put down on this edition of Langkawi.
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Stage 6: Pandan Indah to Rembau (121.3 km)
Stage 6 was a short, punchy day from Pandan Indah to Rembau. Just 121.3 kilometres with a couple of early climbs that blew the race apart before it came back together for a sprint.
Today was an interesting one because we were all confused as to why we were up at half five or six this morning eating breakfast when the stage was so short – only 120 kilometres. But I think Friday is the day of prayer over here for Muslims, so the stage started at 9:00 in the morning, which for me is unheard of! We just don’t do it.
I spoke to one of the commissaires and he was saying it’s because they need to be back in time for prayer. So quite interesting, you know. Again, it is what it is.
The stage started out with two pretty hard climbs. First one was maybe 3 km at 3% and then the second one was 3 or 4 km at 5% I think, and the race blew to pieces on those two climbs already from the very start. But with XDS Astana Team being so strong I think it was pretty clear that they were going to bring MALUCELLI back.
He actually had a puncture and then he got dropped out of the group that was left in the race. I think 25 or 30 guys went over the top of the climb together and then I was in a group of maybe 10 or 15 with Rory (TOWNSEND), but we were already behind.
Then MALUCELLI was behind us with the whole of XDS Astana Team and they came by us like an absolute train and ended up catching the bunch. Later on they basically dragged back the peloton as well, which became a sprint.
Roy (HOOGENDOORN) and Christian (VAN REES) wanted to have a crack at it together. I think they both did pretty well. Christian having our best result this week so far today with 5th.
So overall a pretty good day, you know, and it’s given us a boost of confidence going into the next days where we think we can do another top five or even a podium because Christian looks like he has the speed for it.
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