NEW OUTFIT ALREADY EYEING GLORY IN GIRO D’ITALIA AND VUELTA A ESPANA IN ONLY THEIR SECOND SEASON
AE Team Emirates are aiming to be one of the best road cycling sides in the world by 2020 but they believe they can already win a Grand Tour as early as this summer.
The outfit were only formed out of the rebranding of Lampre-Merida after a four-year sponsorship agreement with Emirates airline last February, but after just one UCI World Tour win in Abu Dhabi last year, they are already plotting world domination.
Key to this confidence has been the winter acquisitions of Alexander Kristoff, Fabio Aru and Dan Martin from respective sides Katusha, Astana and Quick-Step.
All three riders are stage winners in the Grand Tours — the collective term for cycling’s three main events of the year, which are the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana — but climber Aru has won the Vuelta in 2015 and boasts two podiums in the Giro, third in 2014 and second the year after.
“The target this year was to increase the level of the team — and the main goal is to be one of the top seven teams in the world by the end of the year,” said UAE Team Emirates general manager Mauro Gianetti on the sidelines of a visit to the Emirates Headquarters in Dubai on Monday.
The team finished 12th in the UCI World Tour Standings last year.
“We’d also like to show courage in the big tours. We didn’t have a lot of good riders last year but with Aru and Martin, when we go to the Giro and to the Vuelta, we will be at another level with riders fighting for the general classification. The dream and vision is to be by 2020 one of the top teams in the world.”
Britain’s Team Sky are currently the world’s best side on account of them having won five of the last six editions of the sports pinnacle event, the Tour de France. “For Grand Tours for sure Sky has the best team,” said sprint specialist Kristoff, the current European champion. “They have a lot of great climbers and that is what you need for a Grand Tour team.
“But we have signed Aru who has won the tour in Spain and knows what to do in these big events. He has been up there many years already and is not that old, so this year the goal will be the Giro and we have quite a good possibility to win it.
“I believe we can be up there already this year with him, at least in the Giro, because in the Tour de France all the best are there and we maybe lack to be really the best two or three.
“I’m sure if we were aiming for the Tour de France, with Aru we can be up there in the top five and if we have a good tour he can be top three.
“But to win it you really need a good team, it doesn’t matter if you have one guy because you will be attacked from all sides and that is why Team Sky are so strong because they have so many strong climbers to neutralise these attacks.
“We still lack the depth of a Grand Tour team, but have a strong team for example in the classics,” he said of cycling’s sprint one-dayers as opposed to the Grand Tours, which are more varied-challenge threeweek affairs.
“We need strong climbers and this year most of the climbers will go to the Giro to support Aru, then we’ll have a split team in the Tour de France, some guys for me and some for Dan Martin, who like Aru finished inside the top 10 in the Tour de France last year.”
Aru finished fifth in last
Big depth
Of this season’s overall top seven target set by team boss Gianetti, Kristoff added: “For sure that’s possible because we have a big depth in squad for the classics and we also get World Tour ranking points from those races not only the Grand Tours.”
Former 2013 World Champion Rui Costa, an all-rounder who has been with the squad since 2014 when it was still Lampre-Merida, said: “The team is growing with these kind of champions like Aru and Martin, so we are already quite ready to win a big tour.
“We have to go step-bystep, growing the support guys around these champions, but I think from this year we are in the battle for the big tours.”
Aru agreed: “The team around me is really strong and the goals this year are really high, we are really motivated.
“I believe we can do well in both the Giro and the Vuelta. I won the Vuelta and have two podiums in the Giro, so I know both races quite well, and hope to do well in both.”
Explaining the lack of focus on the Tour de France this year, he said: “It’s a decision of the team. I attended the last two Tours de France and did really well. But for sure teams change the programme and this year we’ve decided to focus on the Giro and Vuelta and maybe next year we are going to return to the Tour de France.”
General manager, UAE Team Emirates