The Rwandan Road World Championships may have already pulled the attention of cycling fans away from Europe, but as the racing for the rainbow bands wraps up on Sunday, the reasons to continue looking further afield will not end; in fact, the Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi will be hoping to draw the eyes of the cycling world even further away.
The race, which begins on its namesake island, will host the usual mix of WorldTour, ProTour and Continental riders, and while the season may be nearing its conclusion, there is plenty of reason for the rider motivation to remain high at the race.
It delivers on many fronts, acting as a last chance tour for those that haven't had the year or contract market go their way, or alternately it can set up a first chance for up and coming riders eager to draw the attention of a top tier team – that is after all a theory that has a proven-history, going right back to when Alexander Vinokourov managing to catch a crucial eye when he lined up at the second edition with the Kazakh national team in 1997
This year, at the 2.Pro race from September 28 to October 5, there are also some additional factors at play, namely relegation and the end of the three-year rankings cycle. This decides who is in or out of the WorldTour, who gets the top three ProTeam spots that result in automatic invitations to the Grand Tours and then also at stake is who could slip away from any chance of even being eligible for a wildcard invitation by slipping out of the top 30.
The points up for grabs in the overall and stages – topping out at 200 for the GC winner and 20 for the victor of each stage – could be a handy addition to the final tally for a number of teams, with UNO X on the brink of a WorldTour spot, Tudor Pro Cycling well-positioned for the automatic Grand Tour invites, while further down the rankings VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizané is in a tight battle with Solution Tech Vini Fantini for a place inside the top 30 and both are at the race.
Points have also been important for the two WorldTour teams at the race, XDS Astana and Picnic PostNL, throughout much of the season, but the pressure is off a little now as both look set to maintain their spots, so other goals can come to the fore as they line up in Malaysia.
"It's not mathematically safe, but we are at a good point to continue in the WorldTour for the next three years so yes, for me, my goals is not UCI points, also because in the stages there aren't a lot of points, but for me the goal is to win some space and for sure we fight for it," said XDS Astana's Matteo Malucelli of his stage win chase at a media conference in Kuah, Langkawi ahead of the event.
Malucelli has plenty of experience claiming stages at the event, taking three while racing for JCL Team UKYO last year, but there is no doubt he'll have a fight on his hands through the likely six or seven sprint stages of the tour, which moves from the jungle heavy, idyllic beach fringed island of Langkawi and traverses Peninsular Malaysia from top to bottom, crossing from coast to coast along the way.
Arvid De Kleijn, for one, left the Italian sprinter settling for second twice last year and also won two stages in the previous edition. The Tudor Pro Cycling rider who clipped through last season with an impressive tally of 5 victories – including a Paris-Nice stage win - may have entered the new season with every reason to believe he could add another stack to the tally, but was quickly standing in front of a major hurdle, a complicated collarbone fracture. Still he returned to racing mid year and it wasn't too long before he also made it back to the podium at Renewi Tour, now the Tour de Langkawi delivers an opportunity to make it back to the top step.
"The goal is just to win, win stages like the past two years, and my level is, let's say, as good as it's been these two years, so I'm just looking forward to sprinting with the other guys," said De Kleijn.
Malucelli and De Kleijn will also face some new competition, with a retiring Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) deciding that a Le Tour de Langkawi debut could provide a fitting farewell.
"I see there's good opportunities for sprinters, and I saw in the past also a lot of sprinters won here, so I'm here to try to win also," said Kristoff. "I'm missing two victories for 100 pro wins, so that's the objective, but I know it's gonna be difficult."
Though, of course, there is more than just stages at stake, but it looks set to be a wide open overall battle with no clear cut favourite, particularly given the podium placers of last year aren't at the race this year – where stage 5's category 1 finish on Fraser's Hill is likely to be the crucial point in the overall battle.
Still, the 2024 fourth-placed rider, Fernando Tercero (Polti VisitMalta), is on deck this year, and so are Picnic-PostNL, who won with Max Poole last year. Matt Dinham is one rider on their roster that usually would stand out as a potential contender, but that is perhaps too much to ask of the Australian this time, given this is his return after nearly two years off racing following a complicated injury process, which resulted in him discovering he had tarsal tunnel syndrome in his ankle.
It may perhaps be that it is time for XDS Astana – who last won in 2023 – to return to the top GC step and perhaps this time help further the launch of another Vinokourov, given Alexander's son Nicolas is this time one of the overall prospects for the squad.
