Pourseyedigolakhour Creates LTDL History In Queen Stage

GENTING HIGHLANDS, Sunday - Iran's Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour of the Tabriz Petrochemical Team created history today when he upstaged the whole field of favorites to emerge as the first Asian rider to win Le Tour de Langkawi's (LTdL) queen stage - the grueling Stage Four from Subang to the summit of Genting Highlands.

The 29-year old Pourseyedigolakhour came from behind to take the memorable victory, after being left behind when a 35-man breakaway containing many of the contenders for the stage escaped at about 10 kilometres into the stage.

Pourseyedigolakhour, who is also remembered in Malaysia for finishing second overall in the Tour of Borneo in Sabah last year, began to claw his way back into contention in the final 10 kilometres of the stage, combining with another surprise package - MTN-Qhubeka's Eritrean rider Merhawi Kudus - to work his way past all of the riders who'd left them behind in the breakaway.

The pair passed the last of the lead group - the Colombian pair of United Healthcare's Isaac Bolivar and Orica-GreenEDGE's Esteban Chaves - in the final kilometre and Pourseyedigolakhour had enough to pull away to regiser the historic victory and take charge of the yellow jersey as the new overall leader with an eight seconds advantage over Kudus.

"I am very happy to have achieved this win, especially since this is the most important stage of this race. Also no Asian rider has ever won this stage before, so this makes me very proud," said Pourseyedigolakhour, who also leads the Asian riders' classification.

"In my country we have a lot of mountains which are ideal for us to train and improve our climbing. So to prepare for this race we had worked really hard in Iran. Now our aim is to keep the jersey until the end. I think we have a strong team with experienced riders, so we are confident of being able to protect the lead in the coming six stages."

While Pourseyedigolakhour took charge of the overall and Asian riders' classifications, Ireland's Matt Brammeier of the Synergy Baku Cycling Project made it a memorable day for UCI Continental Teams by remaining in the lead of both the points and mountains classifications, having built a sufficient lead in the minor climbs and intermediate sprints ahead of yesterday's stage to protect his leads despite only finishing 116th in the stage.

LTdL continues with Stage 5 today, which takes the peloton through a winding and undulating route covering 134.5km from Karak to Rembau.
-www.ltdl.com.my