The Tour of Guangxi is back after a three-year hiatus, taking place between the 12th and 17th of October.
The 6-stage race covers a total distance of 958.8km. On paper stages 1, 2, 5 and 6 favour the sprinters, while stage 3 could come down to a reduced bunch sprint or favour the punchy classics riders. The overall will be battled out on stage 4, the queen stage at the 4th edition of Tour of Guangxi, where the GC contenders take on a mountain top finish on the way to Mashan County.
Jonathan Milan and Rainer Kepplinger will headline Team Bahrain Victorious at the Tour of Guangxi. Milan will be looking to compete on the sprint stages for one last time in the UCI World Tour season, while Kepplinger is looking to fight for his chance in the general classification.
Joining them in Southern China will be a strong cast of supporting riders. Filip Maciejuk, Cameron Scott and Dušan Rajović make up the lead-out train, as the Serbian champion may also look for his chances depending on the race situation. Ahmed Madan and Johan Price-Pejtersen will support the team in the flat section with their TT expertise.
Gorazd Štangelj, head of sports director, commented: “Everything looks like a sprinter’s race because we have four stages with bunch sprints. Then we have one hilly stage, which might be a reduced bunch sprint, or maybe some punchy riders try to attack stage 3. Stage 4 is the traditional GC day, where, normally, GC will be decided. And also, in the last edition 2019, we had in the Top 10 place climbers due to stage 4, but all the other stages are really fit into the sprinters.”
“With Jonathan Milan, it looks like we are in a good place to fight every day for the stage win. Also other riders are good support for our goal with Dušan Rajović, Cameron Scott, Johan Price-Pejtersen, Filip Maciejuk and Ahmed Madan. We have a really young team there. But the guys raced together already. Maybe we need to take care of some details, but I am confident in this team.”
“We also have Rainer Kepplinger. He will try to ride Top 10 in GC, which would be a good result for us. In the sprinter’s days, I am optimistic with Jonathan Milan that we are in a good place to fight for the victories. We don’t know the start list yet, but many good sprinters will surely be on the start. It’s going to be a big show. Let’s say it’s this season’s last important race for WorldTour teams. We are glad that after this Conora period, a beautiful race as Guangxi came back, and we can again show Chinese fans our team jersey and hopefully some good results.”
