For Victoria’s Riley Pickrell, Thursday was a case of ‘If at first you don’t succeed, sprint, sprint again.’ Riley Pickrell finally got the result he had been chasing at the 2026 Tour de Langkawi, winning Stage 6 in Rembau after two previous runner-up finishes.

Stage 6 recap

The Modern Adventure Cycling Team rider took the bunch sprint at the end of the 121.3-km stage from Pandan Indah, finishing in 2:40:06. The 25-year-old pro also picked up 10 sprint points, moving him closer to Matteo Malucelli in the sprint competition. He and the Italian have been duking it out on all the flat stages—with Malucelli coming out on top in the previous flat days. After the win, he’s just four points behind.

Pickrell said the team had gone back over what went wrong in the earlier stages and made the necessary changes.

“The goal of coming to this race is to win a stage, and it paid off today after coming so close twice before this,” he said. “We reviewed our mistakes from previous stages and managed to rectify them today. There are two more flat stages ahead, and I will try my very best to win again.”

Teamwork makes the dream work

His Modern Adventure Pro Cycling DS, former pro Alex Howes, spoke on the dub.

“It was a great team effort from everybody. We had Kieran Haug in the break to put a little pressure on the other sprint teams; Stefan De Bod kept the pace high in the end and then Scott McGill and Robin Carpenter did an awesome job in taking Riley into the final… and Riley delivered the goods. We’re all very excited,” he said.

Pickrell said he couldn’t thank his teammates enough.

“The boys did such an amazing job today. Kieran went in the early break, so it meant the other teams had to ride full gas and we could relax,” he said. “We knew we had to be in a perfect position and we were hoping that Scott would be able to drop me off just before the corner, but he had really good legs and was able to give me a great run to the finish. We’ve been so close this week, so we knew it was coming… two more to go.”

The race continues Friday with Stage 7, a 158.9-km run from Malacca City to Batu Pahat. You can watch the Tour of Langkawai on FloBikes.com, too.