Last year Matteo Malucelli's Malaysian adventure had ended in the worst possible way, a crash on the sixth stage and the loss of the general classification jersey that was practically in his pocket. This time too, the Tour de Langkawi hadn't been particularly fortunate for the XDS Astana team rider, who had crashed the day before the official start. There was even talk of him withdrawing, but instead Matteo not only started but got off to a winning start. One stage, two, and finally a beautiful final hat-trick complete with victory in the points classification as the best sprinter.

«After crashing on the sixth stage last year, I told myself that my first objective was to finish the race, especially since we didn't start off particularly well. I wanted to win at least one stage and I'm really happy to have done three, just like in the previous edition. Today the team was fundamental, Lopez and Delle Vedove pulled like crazy. I asked Gleb Syritsa and Aaron Gate to pull as hard as possible until the last kilometer. In the two previous sprints I had been caught out, but this time I wanted to launch my attack from very far out. I wanted a strong and long sprint to exploit my strengths. Gleb left me with 200 meters to go at 70 km/h and at that point nobody could catch me,» Matteo explained, concluding his Tour de Langkawi adventure with a smile and making all his many Malaysian fans happy.

In recent days we've witnessed a real battle between Malucelli and Riley Pickrell, the young Canadian sprinter who after two second places had managed to beat the Romagna rider on the sixth stage, but today he had to surrender once again. «It's not so easy to win in races at this level, which is why we start with 6 riders. Everyone races against us and we're always forced to take responsibility for the race. On my path I found Riley Pickrell, a young guy, but really very strong. In the end it was always the two of us fighting it out. After his victory it wasn't so obvious to achieve success, but we wanted to finish in style and we managed it.» Meanwhile Malucelli has reached nine total victories at the Tour de Langkawi, becoming, tied with Graeme Allen Brown, the second most successful athlete ever in the Malaysian race. «I still need 15 victories to reach Andrea Guardini's 24. Doing the math, I should race for another 5 years. It's difficult but not impossible. In the meantime, I've made progress and I've already asked the organizers to put more flat stages in the next editions to make my job easier...»

You can listen to the full interview with Matteo Malucelli in the next episode of BLABLABIKE