The final stage of this years Jelajah Malaysia was another 200km stage finishing back in KL. With the first three on GC still seperated by less than 30 seconds it would be do or die for those looking to improve their positions.

The usual flurry of attacks began as soon as the flag dropped with the boys in all the moves. A small group of seven containing GC condenders Jai Crawford of RTS and Fukushima of Terrenganu managed to get an advantage and pushed on. The boys missed the move but were confident that the race would still come down to a bunch finish seeing that Asian Racing would need to chase as well as the Suren team who had also enlisted the support of the Kasaks.

The breaks advantage was allowed to get to three minutes and that was it with Suren and Asian devoting more fire power to start bringing the gap down. As the race progressed in became obvious that brining them back wouldn’t be easy as despite being away for more than 150km the breaks advantage was only coming down slowly and they were all still together. As they started the last third of the race the roads became more undulating with both the peleton and the break shedding riders. Inspite of the incredible pace of the peleton which was screaming along at 60km/h the break lived on and as every kilometre ticked by their level of belief grew in line with the rising level of panic for the Suren Yellow Jersey.

The heat was taking it’s toll on the boys with Tassie Tom first to let go then Kyle becoming unglued near the top of the final climb. Alex followed a strong attack by PBR’s Michael Torkler and was the only one that could hold the wheel as the inform Kiwis 50km/h surge was just too much for them to handle. Despite the ferocitiy of their attack they were swept up by the desperate peleton as they went all out to capture the break.In the closing kilometres it was touch and go with Alex and Joel the only ones left and Alex starting to struggle. Alex gave one last surge to put Joel into position and then got out of the way. At 1km to go only Crawford and Fukushima remained in front holding a tenous lead of 30 metres. At 500m to go Fukushima started his sprint and with Crawford fully spent and pedaling squares his only challenge now would come from the peleton. Fukushima held on to take an incredible victory by the smallest of margins but it wasn’t enough to upset the Suren Team who took the tour after a controlled and intelligent week of riding. Joel finished 7th after a solid week and will be all the better after some hard racing. Next up Tour of Japan…