Rivera becomes LTDL’s first Costa Rican stage winner, Celano takes yellow.


Afif Abd Halim

Kevin Rivera created history as the first Costa Rican stage winner but it was Team Sapura Cycling’s Danilo Celano who emerged the biggest winner after taking the yellow jersey in the queen stage of the Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi 2020 in Genting Highlands today.

Rivera, 21, from the mountainous Cartago region in Costa Rica, bagged the win after going solo inside the final kilometre, dropping Italian Celano after the pair had teamed up at the foot of Genting to chase down sole leader Artem Ovechkin of the Terengganu Inc-TSG team after the 2018 winner had launched a solo attack to tackle the gruelling climb on his own, as he did en route to his victory two years ago.

Rivera finished the 156.1km stage that began in Putrajaya just 15 seconds ahead of Celano, an early season signing for Sapura from the Amore e Vita-Prodir team, who finished with a 30-second lead in the general classification over previous leader Yevgeniy Fedorov of Vino-Astana Motors.

Ovechkin finished third, 43 seconds behind the winner and moved up to third in the general classification with a 35-second deficit to Celano.

Stage 5 tomorrow will cover a 165.8km route from Kuala Kubu Baru to Ipoh, which sees a comfortable downhill stroll in the earlier part of the race, which is then marked by three intermediate sprints and with no categorised climbs. Team Sapura Cycling will have one less worry about the red jersey on Nur Aiman’s back and can focus on the protection of Celano’s overall lead. – February 10, 2020.


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