Gavazzi strikes late to steal show again
11/02/2009, NST Online

HIS team maintain their plan for the overall title, but that didn't stop the second episode of the Mattia Gavazzi show from being aired yesterday as the Italian again dumped the rest of the pack in the final 100 metres to bag his second straight stage win in a bunch sprint that ended Stage Two of Le Tour de Langkawi from Senawang to Malacca yesterday.

For 24-year-old Gavazzi, winner of Stage One on Monday, yesterday's win consolidated the fact about the strength of Gianni Savio's Diquigiovanni-Androni Gioccatoli team in this race, as the team charged the chase on the breakaway duo of Ag2r-La Mondiale's Alexandr Pliuschin and Cervelo Test Team's Oscar Pujol.

Moldovan national champion Pliuschin and Spaniard Pujol delivered an astonishing performance yesterday, surprising the peloton after the category three climb up 24.8km into the 160.8km stage, and riding together ahead of the bunch for 130km before being caught by a bunch driven by Diquigiovanni and Garmin-Slipstream 4.5km from the finish.

Diquigiovanni started the day hampered by stomach complications to Jose Carlos Ochoa and Luca Celli, who had taken a stop to answer the call of nature mid-race, but hard work from Venezuelan climber Jackson Rodriguez and leader Jose Serpa ensured Gavazzi was put in the position to deliver their 17th stage win in LTdL.

The frontrunners escaped a pile-up behind them at a roundabout 900 metres from the finish at Mahkota Parade, and with about 100 metres to go, it was clear who the winner was going to be as Gavazzi, in the Proton yellow jersey as the overall leader, surged ahead with South Africa's Nolan Hoffman in tow, while Ag2r-La Mondiale's Aurelien Clerc, last year's points classification winner, pipped South Africa's Christoff Van Heerden for third.

"In today's (yesterday's) stage, it was impossible for our team to work like we did yesterday (Monday) and we needed other teams to also play a role in pulling back the breakaway. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to catch them as they were more than seven minutes ahead," said Gavazzi.

"Jackson was working extra hard and he did a good job as two of our riders were struggling with stomach problems. Thankfully, the Garmin-Slipstream team and CSF-Navigare also worked to pull back the breakaway."

Gavazzi leads both the general and points classification thanks to his two stage wins out of two, and is likely to lose the first one when the peloton hits the first of the real climbs in Stage Four tomorrow, where the pretenders to the title, including Diquigiovanni's Serpa, are expected to show themselves before the decisive Genting stage the next day.

The polka dot jersey changed hands but still with a South African, as one of the early favourites Jacques Janse Van Rensburg produced the first indications of his form as he surged unmatched ahead of a pack paced by Le Tua's Ng Yong Li 500m from the category three climb in Bukit Inas to bag the five points and wrest the jersey from teammate Jaco Venter.

Yong Li's hard work came to nothing as the 23-year-old was left trailing by a bunch awakened by Van Rensburg's jump.

Today's Stage Three is a longer 186km loop that starts in Dataran Pahlawan in Malacca and goes through Muar, Tangkak and Bukit Kepong in Johor before returning to the finish in Jalan Hang Tuah in Malacca.

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