In Medina, at the finish line of the seventh stage of the Tour de Langkawi, we witnessed something absolutely crazy. It must be said that in Malaysia, it's not normal to see a rider arrive alone when there's a sprint to be contested - it's an unwritten rule that should be promptly respected, but today all rules were broken. Zeb Kyffin tried his luck 15 km from the finish, caught up with the last survivor of the day's breakaway, and managed to hold onto his advantage over the peloton. Crossing the finish line, he collapsed to the ground in disbelief, having dreamed of his first victory in many ways, but certainly never imagining it would happen like this.

"In 2023 at the Tour of Norway, I came very close to winning a stage. I was in a breakaway with other riders and was really sure I would win, but they caught us in the last kilometer. From that moment, I started dreaming of wanting to relive that situation," Kyffin tells tuttobiciweb. "Today, incredibly, I wasn't even in the breakaway. I wanted to attack about 20 km from the finish, taking advantage of a bridge and a small descent, but my teammates advised me to wait. I seriously tried about 6 kilometers later, launching myself in pursuit of the breakaway rider. Once I was at the head of the race, I knew I had to do everything alone. Nur Aiman was too tired, and I couldn't be intimidated by whether he would give me a turn or not. I just had to give it my all. I ran out of water early and didn't know the gap, but then I saw my sports director appear behind me, and that's when I understood we could actually make it. Once I crossed the finish line, I didn't understand anything anymore, I completely let myself go to euphoria."

Not only is the victory crazy, but so is Zeb Kyffin's story - originally from London but immediately transplanted to the Netherlands when he was 6 months old to follow his father, a Philips designer. He fell in love with cycling immediately, but his destiny was different. Until three years ago, he regularly worked as an industrial designer, and then something changed. "I always liked cycling, but I did it for fun. Then when I was about 19, I tried doing some races, training a bit more to see what would happen. Around 2022 and 2023, the level of races increased, people started noticing me, and so I told myself: why not give it a serious try?" explains Zeb, who in 2024 made the big leap into what would become the Unibet Rocket Tietema. His path was never simple - in his first season with the professional team, he had a bad crash during the Amstel Gold Race reconnaissance in April, a back problem that was completely underestimated until August, when it became impossible for him to even stand up. Those were long and painful months away from the cycling world and his teammates, and that's where Kyffin realized how impossible it was to stay without his bicycle.

Before the Tour de Langkawi, he trained hard, perhaps one of the most intense training periods of his career, driven by a single purpose: to show the best of himself. The Briton landed in Malaysia with the desire not just to race well, but to show the world what he was capable of. While everyone was waiting for the group sprint each day, for him, every new stage was an opportunity to face a new challenge without fear, without thinking about what came after. "In various occasions in my career, I found myself well-positioned in the group and wanting to try a breakaway, but often the idea of giving up prevailed. I was afraid of making a mistake and so I would take a step back. Today, however, that fear wasn't there, because effectively, I had nothing to lose," Kyffin continued. In two days, he might end his adventure in the cycling world. The Briton doesn't have a contract for next year and, as he points out, he's practically alone, without agents, without offers, without real contacts. "If until yesterday someone had asked me what my dream was, I would have answered that it was to win a race. Now that I've succeeded, I just want to continue pedaling. For me, cycling isn't a job, it's a way to express myself at my best, to be myself. It's a personal journey to find the best part of me. I would like to continue having fun, to be excited about what I do."

We don't know if this victory can truly change the situation, but of one thing we are certain: Kyffin's dream needs to continue.