PREVIEW | Tour of Guangxi 2023 stage 1 - Kooij, De Lie, Milan, Welsford and Sam Bennett fight for first leader's jersey

Preview. Stage 1 of the Tour of Guangxi is a day for the sprinters, the start of one of the final races of the season as we head deep into the fall.

Stage 1 of the race will start and finish in Beihai. It is a day with 135 kilometers on the menu and three laps of a long circuit. This one features a 1.5-kilometer ascent at 4.7% which ends with 17.5 kilometers to go, but it shouldn't prevent a bunch sprint. A non-technical bunch sprint wraps it up.

A breeze from the east. Not meaningless, but it shouldn't have much of an effect on this stage.

Olav Kooij - Jumbo-Visma come in motivated, with a small team however with a nice leadout. Kooij has the speed with no doubt, the form too, and with the van Dijkes leading him out I would not be surprised to see the Dutch team continue to win.

Arnaud De Lie - De Lie will have an interesting week. He could actually be a contender for the overall classification and he'll have bonifications in mind. Perhaps there'll be stages better suited to him, not a pure sprint, but he will be a contender.

Sam Bennett - In his final race for BORA - hansgrohe, he was given a leadership role. Archbold and Mullen in the leadout, it actually is a good setup for the Irishman to perform. I wouldn't expect him to survive the climbs much but here it is about speed and on paper, he could still be able to do that.

Jonathan Milan - points classification winner at the Giro d'Italia - will also be happy with a pan-flat finale at the end of a flat day. Sam Welsford, Arvid de Kleijn and Juan Sebastián Molano also pack a lot of speed and could surely fight for the stage win, with the right positioning.

Marijn van den Berg will be the sprinter hoping for differences on the climbs, the rest are riders happy with the flat roads. Jakub Mareczko is usually an interesting rider in the flat Asian races and could actually be in the mix as well. Itamar Einhorn, Elia Viviani, Max Walscheid and David Dekker are also part of the riders who can race for a Top10.

*** Olav Kooij, Jonathan Milan
** Arnaud de Lie, Sam Welsford, Juan Sebastián Molano
* Sam Bennett, Arvid de Kleijn, Marijn van den Berg, Max Kanter, Jakub Mareczko, Max Walscheid

Pick: Olav Kooij