THE national road team completed the Tour de Thailand with another strong showing when Amir Mustafa Rusli fought hard to finish fourth in the final stage.

The 148-kilometre circuit race in Lampang saw the GE-Trek-Marco Polo team register a victory through their Dutch star Leon Van Bon, who overcame stiff competition in a bunch sprint finish.

Amir had stuck it in at the finish and just missed out on what would have been a third consecutive podium finish for the national team.

Van Bon took the win ahead of Giant Asia's Steffen Loffler and Tabriz Petrochemical's Hossein Nateghi, who did just enough to deny the 22-year-old Amir his podium finish.

Giant Asia's German rider Alex Coutts took the overall victory, while the points classification was taken by Nateghi.
National rider Loh Sea Keong, who had won the third stage on Wednesday, finished third in the Asean riders' classification, behind winner Sinkit Paibon of Thailand.

"I think we have shown that we can improve despite all the obstacles put before us," said team leader Fauzan Ahmad Lutfi, when contacted.

Fauzan had made himself present on the podium with a second placed finish in Stage Four on Thursday.

Team manager Omar Saad said he hoped this performance had convinced the Malaysian National Cycling Federation (MNCF) road committee enough to send the team for the Under-23 World Championships later this month.

For the record, Malaysia are ranked second in the UCI Asia Tour Under-23 nations rankings, thus having qualified to field five riders in the road race in Varese, Italy on Sept 25.