Italian Alberto Loddo pulled off a hattrick of stage victories at the Tour de Langkawi Tuesday, winning the Tour’s fifth stage in a field sprint at the end of a 167-kilometer race from Kota Bharu to Kuala Terengganu.

With the most of the field finishing together, Crédit Agricole’s Anthony Charteau easily held on to the comfortable four-minute lead in the overall standings, a buffer he earned on Sunday in the stage to Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands.

Loddo, winner of the opener in Langkawi and the fourth stage on Monday, was clearly in a class of his own as he swept through Kuala Terengganu to easily claim yet another victory. Selle Italia-Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni’s Loddo, completed the 167-kilometer stage in a time of 3 hours 55 minutes and 7 seconds.

Ceramiche Panaria’s Richeze Maximiliano, winner of Stage 2, ended up second again while SouthAustralia.com’s Nicholas Sanderson was third across the line in this town located on the east coast of the country.

“First of all, I would like to thank my teammates for a great work done. Just like yesterday, we knew that there was going to be another sprint finish. With 500 meters to go, we set the pace and with 300 meters to the finish line, I rediscovered myself and went on to take the stage, ” said Loddo.

“Again I would like to thank my manager Gianni Savio for giving me a break with my cycling career. Thanks to him I have managed to climb back to where I was before.”

As it has in previous days, the race started fast and the first of the breakaways occurred around the 4km point with 14 riders racing ahead. Among them were pre-race favorite Francesco Bellotti (Crédit Agricole) and Jose Serpa (Selle Italia). The riders attacked but in the end regrouped after the sprint in Paser Puteh.

There was another try led by Koji Fukushima but that, too, did not last long. The most significant breakaway was at the 60km involving six riders – Franck Renier (Bouygues Telecom), Julio Perez Cuapio (Panaria), Nikoloi Trusov (Tinkoff), Johannes Kachelhoffer (South Africa), Miyataka Shimizu (Nippo-Meitan) and Sergio Barbero (Selle Italia).

The escapees extended their lead to a maximum of 5 minutes and 15 seconds around the 100km mark. The bunch behind split into three as they reached the seaside where there was a strong wind blowing.

Finally, thanks to the efforts of Selle Italia, the leaders were caught, and the peloton regrouped, with about 4km remaining.