Image 1 of 50

Astana's 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Andrea Guardini is the most prolific stage winner of 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de Langkawi history, and aims to add to his tally of 18 victories in this week's 21st edition of the Malaysian race. Back for his sixth year in a row, fresh off the Dubai Tour and Tours of Qatar🍌 and Oman, the Italian is hoping to♛ find his first win of the season.

&ld🌜quo;I’m happy to be back to Malaysia. There are a lot of good stages for me and the weather is really nice," Guardini said at the ope💦ning press conference. "I expect a lot of work to do for Astana but we won’t be able to do all the work, so I hope for other teams to contribute to chasing breakaways down.

"I haven’t set any particular goal for myself in terms of victories. It’s true that I hold the record here with 18 stage wins but no win is easy to get. Year after year, I can see this race growing. I’m not the only sprinter here. There are a lot of young fᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚast sprinters, several Italian sprinters and I can see that Anuar [Manan💮] is skinnier than last year."

Indeed, Manan had a solid season so far🔴, with a pair of wins in the Jelajah Malaysia in December. He is the only Malaysian to win a stage in Langkawi, which of♏ten attracts a handful of WorldTour teams in addition to a strong line-up of Pro Continental squads.

Defending overall champion Yousef Reguigui is competing at the African Continental Championships and will miss the race, but his 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Dimension Data squad comes with new South African champion Jaco Venter, who no♉ted that the team had no designat📖ed leader.

"We’re un🍃der pressure to win Le Tour de Langkawi again but there’s no clear favourite for GC so we’ll firstly focus on stage wins with Reinhardt [Janse van Rensburg]," Venter said.

Another notable name in the race is 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Matthew Goss. The former Milan-San Remo winner joined the British 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:ONE Pro Cycling squadﷺ, and it will be the first time the Australian has taken part in the Tour de Langkawi. "Le Tour de Langkawi is a race I’ve always looked at during my career and I always wanted🎐 to do it," he said. "Finally I get an opportunity with One Pro Cycling and there’ll be a lot of opportunities for sprinting here in the next eight days."

The eight-stage Tour de Langkawi begins on Wednesday in Kangar. With the Genting Hܫighlands finish 🌳absent again this year, the race's main difficulty will be the fourth stage to Cameron Highlands.

• See also: The 2016 Tour de Langkawi start list.
  
• 2016 Tour de Langkawi race hub