KUALA LUMPUR: Terengganu Cycling Team (TSG) have topped the year-ending UCI Asia Tour rankings for the sixth time and have also ended the season as the top ranked UCI Continental side in the world.
It is the fourth consecutive year (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) the Kuala Terengganu-based squad have topped the Asia Tour standings. They first achieved the feat in 2012 followed by 2019.
They collected 1,879.33 points this season, comfortably beating Japan's JCL Team Ukyo (1,498) to the top spot. Thailand's Roojai Insurance (1,361.68) were third overall.
TSG's points placed them No.30 in the world rankings for teams, with only UCI WorldTeam and ProTeam sides ranked above them.
TSG sporting director Saiful Anuar Aziz is hoping to extract greater performances from his riders next season.
"Of course I am pleased to see the team top the rankings once again. Getting to the top spot is not easy but defending it is much harder," said Saiful today.
"It has been another year of tough racing and our riders did well.
"I think the highlight of the year for us would be the Tour of Turkiye (April) in which we managed to place second in the general classification through Merhawi Kudus. It was a very tough UCI ProSeries race.
"Of course there is still a lot of room for improvement and we are hoping to further improve our performances next year.
"I am hoping to see our local riders raise their game. We have some very talented (Malaysian) riders such as Nur Aiman Zariff, Nur Aiman Rosli as well as Kee Zhe Yie, who is only 21."
Eritrean Kudus, who joined TSG from EF Education-EasyPost at the start of the year, has now left the squad as he has signed a two-year deal with Spanish side Burgos-BH (UCI ProTeam).
Saiful disclosed that TSG are still in the process of finalising their foreign rider signings for next season.
TSG will next race at Tour de Siak in Indonesia which is a UCI2.2 tour. Points collected from the race will count for the 2025 season.