Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg wins 2016 Tour de Langkawi

Reinardt Janse van Rensburg has his sights set on being selected to ride in a second Tour de France later this year as a key member of Dimension Data team’s sprint train to set up Mark Cavendish for stage wins.

But after securing overall victory in the Tour de Langkawi on Wednesday, Janse van Rensburg, 27, told Cyclingnews that he needs to continue with similarly impressive performances to earn one of the nine places in Dimension Data’s Tour team.

“I am looking forward to doing it again. It’s going to be pretty tight,” Janse van Rensburg said. "We have really some big names in the team, but I hope there is space for me. Results like this help.

“We have a really big sprinter with Cavendish there. So it depends on who he wants in his lead-out. But I think I am one of the guys that can really stand out in his lead-out.”

Janse van Rensburg’s win at Langkawi was impressive. He even extended his overall lead on Wednesday’s final 119km stage from Batu Pahat to Melaka, won in a bunch sprint by Andrea Guardini (Astana) from fellow Italian Jakub Mareczko (Southeast-Venezuela) and Shiki Kuroeda (Aisan Racing Team).

Janse van Rensburg, who placed 12th on the stage that saw the peloton split near the finish with a group of 15 riders crossing the line four seconds ahead, gained three seconds by winning the first of three intermediate sprints at 16.2km.

Then Janse van Rensburg’s nearest rivals overall, the Colombian pair of Daniel Jaramillo (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling) and Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) lost four more seconds to him by finishing in the second group. However, the pair still held on for second place overall at 18 seconds and third at 19 seconds respectively.

Janse van Rensburg will soon get the chance to prove his value to Cavendish, with them both due to race together at Tirreno-Adriatico (March 9-15) and Milan San Remo (March 19).

Janse van Rensburg will then likely race in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix before a break, and then rebuild towards a possible Tour de France start in July by racing in either the Critérium du Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse in June.

Janse van Rensburg labelled his Tour de Langkawi win as the best of his career. It was also his first overall win in a stage race since 2012 when he rode for his South African team, which at that point had a Continental licence and was named MTN-Energade. That year, he won the Tour de Bretagne, Tour du Maroc and Ronde van Overijssel overall, two stages of the Volta a Portugal, and the Ronde van Zeeland Seaports.

He then rode for the Dutch World Tour team, Argos-Shimano from 2013 to 2014 – winning the 2013 Binche-Chimay-Binche in Belgium – before returning to the MTN fold in 2015, and staying put for the transition to WorldTour status under the Dimension Data banner in 2016.
“It was my first stage race victory since 2012, so it’s a long time coming,” Janse van Rensburg said at his post race press conference.

“I am really happy to get the breakthrough victory again. I hope this is a good sign for the future, and only the start of a very successful season going forwards. This is definitely my biggest victory in my career. I am really happy. It’s UCI ‘HC’ race, so it’s a really big ranking with a lot of points. It was a really good race, good organisation.”

How it happened

Despite going into the final stage with 11 seconds on Jaramillo and 12 seconds on Lopez, Janse van Rensburg said he was still “quite nervous,” adding: “I was counting down the kilometres from ‘120’ today. Anything can happen.”

Despite a flurry of early attacks, the bunch was still together for the first intermediate sprint at 16.2km, which prompted Janse van Rensburg to use his sprinting strength to gain a time bonus. He won the sprint from Francisco Mancebo (Skydive Dubai) and Luca Chirico (Bardiani-CSF).

“It was just to get an extra cushion in case something happens in the end,” Janse van Rensburg said. “It was not a focus before the stage but when it was together I saw an opportunity to go for the seconds and I took it.”

Mancebo’s second place in the sprint moved him up from sixth to fourth place overall, as he leapfrogged Denmark’s Jesper Hansen (Tinkoff) and Briton George Harper (ONE Pro Cycling).

The main break of the day formed after the sprint – a three-strong group of Joo Yong Seo (KSPO), Ho San Chiu (HKSI) and See Keong Loh (Malaysia National). Their lead on the peloton reached 5:15 at 68km, but they were caught just before the first of three eight-kilometre laps of the finishing circuit in Melaka.

From there, the bunch sprint was assured, and so long as Janse van Rensburg avoided disaster before the last three kilometres, so too was his first overall tour win since 2012.

“I was really relieved with a few k to go with no bad luck, so I was really happy to get over the line,” he said after.

Not bad considering that while a good overall result was on Janse van Rensburg’s mind when he arrived, he was only a late call-up to the Dimension Data team in Malaysia.

“I was a replacement,” he said. “The team put me in. And finally I got the overall victory.”

With that, Janse van Rensburg’s next stop was Dubai where his fiancé Leilani was waiting to fly with him to Barcelona for rest of what he hopes will be a huge season.

“These are the prime years coming,” he said. “I have a long career ahead of me. But it’s the time of your career when you have to start performing. Hopefully it continues now.”

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