KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian road cycling great Harrif Saleh admitted that he struggled in the fourth stage of Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) yesterday (Sept 2).
Harrif and 18 other riders finished over the time limit (OTL) for the fourth stage (Kuala Kubu Bharu-Bentong) and thus will not be able to compete in the final four stages of the UCI ProSeries tour.
The Terengganu Cycling Team (TSG) rider said he had yet to recover from the gruelling queen stage climb in stage three (Taiping-Cameron Highlands) and had vomited and felt dizzy prior to starting the fourth stage.
"Of course I feel sad but I just have to accept that it was not meant to be. This is the first time this (OTL) has happened to me in LTdL," said Harrif, 36, today.
"I admit that I was not able to recover sufficiently after the climb at Cameron Highlands. I felt dizzy and vomited before the fourth stage.
"The race was very fast from the start, even before the category one climb at Fraser's Hill.
"A group of roughly 10 riders, including myself, were dropped. We tried our best to latch on to the middle group but were unable to do so, they were just too fast.
"I admit that their (WorldTour and Pro Continental teams) level is far higher than us and we Asian sprinters lack experience in high-level competitions such as this."
There are no more Malaysian sprinters left in the competition as Malaysia Pro Cycling's Izzat Hilmi Abdul Halil and Zulhelmi Zainal (Nusantara Cycling Team) also finished OTL yesterday. National team rider Elmi Jumari is also out of the tour after suffering serious injuries in a crash during the second stage.
Other notable OTL casualties included defending champion Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost), Ara Skip Capital's Tyler Tomkinson, who held the polka dot jersey after the first stage, and Team Corratec-Vini Fantini's Jakub Mareczko, who is a four-time LTdL stage winner.
Harrif has won three LTdL stages (one in 2019, two in 2020), more than any other Malaysian rider. He also became the first Malaysian rider to win a UCI sanctioned race in Europe when he won the GP Velo Manavgat in Turkiye in 2021.
The fifth stage, which starts in Kuala Lumpur and ends in Melaka today, will also be tough with three categorised climbs in Ampang, Bukit Hantu (both category two) and Bukit Mantin (category three).