It's now common knowledge that whenever Matteo Malucelli arrives in Asia he transforms and becomes practically unbeatable in sprints. Now a total superstar of the Tour de Langkawi, today in Kuala Lumpur he delivered an imperial sprint to the large crowd present, allowing him to claim the third stage. An extremely hot and seemingly endless day that nonetheless allowed him to reach a total of 8 victories in the Malaysian race. "The difficult thing in these races is that they ask you to win on that specific day, the team works entirely for you and you can't make mistakes. Over time I've learned to manage the stress, my teammates motivate me because they give everything to get me to the finish line in the best possible position. At home they trained specifically for this moment, they're sacrificing their personal ambitions for me, I can't let them down."

Analyzing Malucelli's day, it's evident that the team was practically perfect from the start, first with the great work of Alessio delle Vedove to control the breakaway and then the train led by Syritsa that allowed him to quickly rejoin the group and launch into the sprint. "It was a chaotic sprint, on the last corner we were a bit behind and had to recover. The team for sprints is perfect, Syritsa, Gonov and Gate are extraordinary, it's the second year we've raced together, we understand each other well without having to speak and I hope that next season there's the opportunity to work well and see how many other results we can achieve" Malucelli explained, then highlighting the great work of young delle Vedove who in these Malaysian days has put himself entirely at the team's disposal, working hard but also learning a great deal. "Delle Vedove is a very good guy, he came to Malaysia to work and is seizing this opportunity to learn as much as possible. Today he pulled alone for many kilometers allowing us to arrive fresh in the sprint. The Tour de Langkawi isn't a hard race altimetrically, but if you pull all day the fatigue becomes noticeable. He's a sprinter, yet he doesn't hold back when he needs to help the team."

In the infernal heat of Malaysia, the XDS Astana team rider had to face off once again against Australian Riley Pickrell who until the very end tried to give him a hard time. "I've already raced with him at Alula and the UAE Tour where he went really strong, he's definitely not a newcomer. In these days he's showing me he's particularly determined, he's just missing a victory and I believe he'll get it sooner or later. He reminds me a lot of myself in 2024: I kept taking beatings from de Kleijn but then in the end I made a great comeback. Today after the finish I told him 'believe in it because you're strong, the day will come', personally we hope it comes after Langkawi." In the next sprint Pickrell will certainly try to get his revenge, but for now the facts speak of a stronger Malucelli. The Romagna rider has all the odds in his favor but doesn't suffer from the weight of expectations, by now he knows how to manage the pressure on his shoulders.

Tomorrow the Tour de Langkawi enters its decisive days, two stages for pure climbers in which Malucelli will only need to think about managing himself while waiting for the three final fractions. Cameron Highlands, Genting Highlands, the objective will be simply to get the bike to the finish line, but the question comes naturally, how does a pure sprinter like him experience these infernal climbs? "I hope the next two days pass quickly, mentally they'll be very tough because you start without an objective, you just have to reach the finish line. On one hand it's easier because you don't have the pressure of having to produce a result at all costs, it's like being in training, but you can't relax too much or you risk finishing outside the time limit. Fortunately over the years I've learned to manage these situations, to know how to wait, at the Giro I went from Naples to Milan waiting for a sprint, over a week all climbing, here fortunately it's only two days."