Fabian Giger is unable to defend his previous year's victory at the "Langkawi International Mountain Bike Challenge". A defect in the first stage, where he was 33 minutes behind, knocked him out of contention for overall victory early on. Nevertheless, Giger does not give up easily and wins the second and final stage, which still results in seventh place overall.

Nicola Rohrbach gets the Challenge off to a good start with third place in the prologue. With the exception of the second stage, where he finished 13th, Rohrbach regularly finished in the top ten and rode onto the podium again in second place in the third stage. However, Rohrbach lost too much time on the first stage, denying him a place on the podium.

Kohei Yamamoto rides the stage race consistently and leaves himself little behind. In the third stage, the Japanese rider takes a clear stage win to decide the race. In the last two stages, Yamamoto never relinquished the overall lead and only lost a few seconds to his rival Emil Lindgren. Yamamoto's victory was a small surprise, as the Japanese rider was probably not on any of the favorites' radar.The women's race was dominated by Yamamoto's teammate Lea Davison. The prologue victory goes to the Italian Eva Lechner. With her second place in the first stage, Lechner defends her overall lead. In the second stage, Davison's victory sees the lead change hands. Davison now seemed unstoppable and also won the third and fourth stages. In the fifth and final stage, Maja Wloszczowska once again came up trumps, but had no chance of catching Davison. She wins the "Langkawi International Mountain Bike Challenge" with a lead of over five minutes. Eva Lechner finished third overall.

Nathalie Schneitter finished in a good seventh place overall. The 2011 Swiss champion climbs to third place on the podium in both the prologue and the final stage.

Overall ranking list "Langkawi International Mountain Bike Challenge"
Men's ranking
Women's ranking

www.mtbmalaysia.com