With his emotions slightly effected after carrying a slight injury sustained in a crash that took out multiple riders at the end of Stage Two in Taiping yesterday, Tregnago, Italy-born Guardini, 24, managed t overcome the pain to show just how strong he was in a dominant win in the bunch sprint that ended today's stage.
"I was feeling a bit of pain in the beginning of the stage and I was even thinking about abandoning. Then after two hours it felt better and I was more comfortable. In the final 15 kilometres I told my team to prepare because I felt I could sprint," said Guardini.
"I am quite familiar with the roads in into Dataran Merdeka, so I was confident of doing well. I am happy to have registered my first win of the season here."
Team Colombia's Duber Quintero finished in the peloton to maintain his grip on the yellow jersey ahead of the grueling climb up Genting Highlands tomorrow.
He starts 19 seconds ahead of second placed Matt Brammeier, who was part of a five-man breakaway and added the blue jersey as the points classification leader to his red jersey as the mountains classification leader which he claimed after Stage 1 in Langkawi.
"I am normally better on the smaller climbs, but tomorrow will be a big climb to Genting. I will try to maintain this lead. In any case I have a strong team here and we should be aiming to do well in the general classification and tomorrow is the day," said Quintero.
"Among the contenders will be Esteban Chavez of Orica-GreenEDGE and Isaac Bolivar of United Healthcare, but other teams have some very good climbers as well. I will try to compete with them," added the 23-year old Quintero.
The white jersey as the leading Asian rider remained with OCBC Singapore's Goh Choon Huat, who vowed to retain the jersey in the Genting Highlands stage tomorrow.
-www.ltdl.com.my
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