Cycling: The UAE Team Emirates has – at least under this name – completed its first season. Some notable results have already been achieved. The transfers indicate that the team intends to continue attacking in 2018. A future cycling giant is slumbering in the UAE Team Emirates.
departures
Andrea Guardini (Bardiani-CSF)
Marko Kump (CCC Sprandi Polkowice)
Louis Meintjes (Dimension Data)
Sacha Modolo (EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale)
Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Merida)
Federico Zurlo
Additions
Fabio Aru (Astana)
Sven Erik Bystrom (Katusha-Alpecin)
Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin)
Daniel Martin (Quick Step Floors)
Aliaksandr Riabushenko (Palazzago Soligo Amaru Sirio)
Rory SutherlandMovistar
Anass Aït El Abdia (World Cycling Center)
Team 2018
AIT EL ABDIA Anass
ARU Fabio
ATAPUMA John Darwin
BONO Matteo
BYSTRØM Sven Erik
CONSONNI Simone
CONTI Valerio
COSTA Rui
DURASEK Kristijan
FERRARI Roberto
GANNA Filippo
KRISTOFF Alexander
LENGTH Vegard Stake
MARCATO Marco
MARTINDaniel
MIRZA Yousef Mohamed
MORI Manuele
NIEMIEC Przemyslav
PETILLI Simone
POLANC Jan
RAVASI Edward
RIABUSHENKO Alexandr
SUTHERLAND Rory
SWIFT User
TROIA Oliviero
ULISSI Diego
A balanced team performance
For more than ten years, the building materials manufacturer Lampre has sponsored a team in cycling. The company only withdrew for the 2017 season. Licensing then migrated from Italy to the United Arab Emirates, making history of the last Italian WorldTour team. At the beginning of the year, the Emirates airline joined Team UAE Abu Dhabi as a sponsor, so that the name of the team changed to UAE Team Emirates. It was immediately clear to the experts that no half measures are being taken here. After all, the Emirates airline sponsors football, for example Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal FC. So money shouldn't be the problem here. Nevertheless, it was difficult in the opening season. Rui Costa ensured the important home win at the Abu Dhabi Tour 2017. Jan Polac won the 4th stage of the Giro d'Italia and thus ensured the first major international success. Towards the end of the season, the valuable successes of the team accumulated. Matej Mohoric crossed on the 7th stage of the Vuelta a Espana the first professional to cross the finish line. Two weeks later, Diego Ulissi won the Montreal GP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yIvjPrp3Rs
Tour de Shopping: Fabio Aru, Daniel Martin & Alexander Kristoff
If you read through the successes of the UAE Team Emirates, many names can be found. The 19 victories and another 36 podium places have been distributed nicely to almost the entire team. This is an advantage, but also a disadvantage, because the team could not show a real guarantee of victory in 2017. In order for this to change for the coming season, the team management has come up with a very special coup - and thus caused dissatisfaction in Astana. They snatched away the strong Italian classification driver Fabio Aru from the Kazakhs. Since Daniel Martin from Quick-Step Floors and Alexander Kristoff from Katusha-Alpecin have also been signed, the signals are clearly recognizable. The UAE Team Emirates will attack in full in the 2018 season. Better results are virtually inevitable. And we can be pretty sure that there will be a lot of investment again in the next transfer period.
📸Best pictures from #UAETeamEmirates🇦🇪 #Trainingcamp in Sicily 🇮🇹.
Check out the photo gallery on our website: https://t.co/rHaNjjxCRI
Photo:@PhotoFizza pic.twitter.com/HN8gfqFL0G
— @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamUAEAbuDhabi) 16 December 2017