Philip Deignan will go around the world this season. The Team Sky rider, after completing the Tour of Oman, he will go to Malaysia the next month to race the Tour de Langkawi. He hopes to find a good form to approve his condition before a come-back in Europe for the spring races.

"I'm a little bit behind where I'd like to be ideally but it is still only February. We've got time to work on the condition," the Irish man told Cyclingnews. "I've done (Langkawi) a couple of times before and it's been a nice race. It's a good race to get condition, and you can come out of it with quite good form because it's eight days… if you look after yourself well."

Team Sky will race for the first time this race and the staff will bet on Deignan who has finished 11th overall in 2009.

After this race, he will start the Giro del Trentino in April. And if he is in a good form, he may be selected for the first three-week race of the year: "If I go to the Giro it will be to help Richie Porte or Leo Konig, so it will be more as a support rider and going in breakaways like I did last year. We didn't really have a GC guy there last year but if we go this year with Leo and Richie it will be a different sort of scenario. I learned a lot of things last year. It was a great season, so I definitely want to build on last year and keep progressing," he added.