LANGKAWI, March 7 ― The leading cycling event of the country, Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) 2015 will start officially here tomorrow covering a distance of 99.2km round the island with 22 teams competing.

The “Hors Classe 2.0” event, supported by the Malaysian National Cycling Federation (MNCF) will be participated by four professional teams, seven pro continent teams, 10 continental teams as well as Malaysian teams.

The current hot weather would be a major factor to riders vying for four jerseys, namely the yellow jersey (overall champion), green jersey (sprint king), red jersey (mountain king) and the white jersey as Asia's best cyclist.

Race organiser, Human Voyage Sdn Bhd has decided to shorten the distance to eight stages over 1,118km compared to 1,495.9km (10 stages) last year in LTdL 2015.

The participation of world teams such as Team Sky of United Kingdom and MTN-Qhubeka of South Africa will certainly make the race more intense this year.

The three international professional teams participating are Astana Pro Team (Kazakhstan), Tinkoff-Saxo (Denmark) and Orica GreenEdge of Australia.

MNCF, however will be fielding a team of veterans and young riders to take on the challenge this year.  

They comprised two experienced racers, Loh Sea Keong and Suhardi Hassan apart from new faces such as Muhammad Faruq Daud, Mohammad Izzat Hilmi Abdul Halil and twins Muhammad Ameer and Muhammad Ameen Ahmad Kamal. ― Bernama