The 22-year-old has made his mark this season with wins at the Volta ao Algarve, Scheldeprijs, and Presidential Tour of Turkey, signalling his intention to go head-to-head with the top-tire sprinters in the ATOC field.
The race has always been a happy hunting ground for the fast men and this year is no different with the likes of Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe), John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo), Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), Gianni Moscon (INEOS) and the always volatile Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) in the field.
All stages of the 13-19 May Amgen Tour of California will be broadcast and streamed live on SBS Viceland, the website and SBS OnDemand.
It will be Jakobsen's first outing in the USA, where he will be joined by Kasper Asgreen, Remi Cavagna, Tim Declercq, Michael Morkov, Maximiliano Richeze and Zdenek Stybar.
“We are happy to come back every year at the start of the Tour of California, the race that takes place in the home country of our long-time sponsor Specialized, with a stage even finishing in Morgan Hill, where Specialized is based," Deceuninck-QuickStep sports director Wilfried Peeters said.
“Fabio will be our main man for the bunch sprints, where he’ll be guided by Michael and Max, with Tim and Kasper the guys in charge of controlling the peloton.
"Zdenek and Rémi will have some freedom and we’ll see what they can do on this tough parcours. Overall, we are looking forward to being present there, in what’s always one of the nicest races on the calendar.”
The 14th edition of the Amgen Tour of California features more than 20,000 meters of climbing and starts from Sacramento, where the fast men are expected to be in the spotlight at the finish for the first of three pure sprinting opportunities on offer.
Three other stages are designed to suit the attackers and puncheurs, with the decisive GC showdown coming on Mt. Baldy (8.2km, 8.4 per cent), which makes its return on the course after a two-year absence.
