Dimension Data Eye Unprecedented Hat-Trick At Le Tour de Langkawi

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 4 (Bernama) -- South Africa's Dimension Data is the first World Tour team to have signed up for the 22nd edition of the Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) which will be held from Feb 22 to March 1. LTdL chief executive officer Emir Abdul Jalal said the team make their way to South East Asia as defending champions after having won the overall classification twice in a row with Youcef Reguigui and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg at the helm. "In our history that goes over three decades, no team has managed to accomplish a hat-trick, so here's a challenge for them. Everyone talks about Africa in cycling now but this is nothing new to us in Malaysia. "For the very first Le Tour de Langkawi in 1996, the South African national team was invited. Douglas Ryder, the big boss of Dimension Data now, was part of it," said Emir in a statement here today. Ryder was one of the star riders of the first few years of the race (fifth overall in 1996 and the King of the Mountains in 1998. If Dimension Data complete the hat-trick in its seventh straight LTdL participation, it will be with a third different cyclist as Reguigui and Janse van Rensburg have not been entered this time around. However, the name of the defending champion remains on the start list with Jacques Janse van Rensburg. Dimension Data is likely to amaze with promising neo pros Ryan Gibbons and Ben O'Connor, from South Africa and Australia respectively. -- BERNAMA