Exactly two months before the opening stage of the 2011 Tour de Langkawi, the race organisers have announced the first teams for the prestigious 2.HC ranked event.
The quintet of continental squads are all from the Asia-Pacific region and are led by the 2010 team classification winners Tabriz Petrochemical, who beat ISD-Neri and Footon-Servetto to scoop the prize. Hossein Askari was a fine third in the overall standings, while Ghader Mizbani and Ahad Kazemi were ninth and tenth.
The Aisan Racing Team was equally successful, with Japanese national champion Taiji Nishitani winning stage four to Paris Sulong. He won a big group sprint, showing his speed when he held off Michael Matthews (Jayco-Skins). Matthews won the world under 23 championship this Autumn, dominating the gallop there, and so Nishitani is also well able to sprint.
Australian squad Drapac-Porsche also topped the podium when Stuart Shaw sped to victory on the final day of the race. Peter McDonald brought additional success to the team when he won the King of the Mountains award and also finished fourth overall in the race.
The team has a strong relationship with Malaysia, and has signed the country’s national road race champion Adiq Husainie Othman as well as Mustafa Rusli, who finished third overall at the 2010 Jelajah Malaysia.
The winner of the latter event, Irishman David McCann, will be the likely leader of the fourth team confirmed for the race: Giant Asia. He said that riding strongly in the event was very important for him. “There’s one race I’d like to win in Asia before I quit competing, and it’s Le Tour de Langkawi”, he said.
Although he’s now 37 years of age, he had one of his most successful seasons to date in 2010. In addition to the Jelajah Malaysia success, he also took the Melaka Governor Cup, the Tour of Taiwan and the Tour of the Philippines.
The five teams announced today are completed by Polygon Cycling Team from Indonesia. It will battle for the Asian team standings, aiming for a strong performance.
The event is a very important part of the calendar for each of the teams. The race CEO Mohamed Salleh said he is glad to feature teams from the Asia-Pacific region. “Being one of only four UCI H.C races on the Asia Tour, it’s part of the duty of le Tour de Langkawi to give exposure to some of the teams from our continent,” he said. “Some teams are faithful to our event and we’re happy to reward them by inviting them once again.”
A total of 23 teams are planned for the 2011 race, and they will once again encounter great weather, extremely positive crowd support and top quality accommodation in the race, which will begin on the stunning island of Langkawi.
The lineup is expected to feature ten teams from Europe and the US, ten from Asia-Pacific and three from Malaysia itself.
“Our technical department is working hard on getting good teams to attend our race”, Mohamed continued. “We’re confident that the sixteenth edition of Le Tour de Langkawi will be a very good one on an international scale.”
The race will run from January 23rd to February 1st, will comprise ten stages and will total 1315.4 kilometres before the finish in Dataran Merdeka.