UAE-Team Emirates thread

[drebelo]

After the huge investment off last season it was expected to see this team dominating the world Tour, but till now the three big signings (Daniel Martin, Fabio Aru and Kristoff) have shown really poor performances nowhere near there best results, and also the biggest guys from last year like Rui Costa, Ben Swift and Ulissi (just to name a few) haven´t shown anything special this year.
How can a team that have invest so much gain so little?

 

[Koronin]

Seems like another Katusha. They've been great at spending money and not getting much in the way of results. I don't know how high UAE's budget is but Katusha (at least 2 years ago) had a budget within 2 million euros of Sky. I still want to know what they spent it on.

 

[Krokro]

Katusha's budget is between 15-17 million (€) and UAE would be around 30 million. It's indeed disappointing until now..

 

[EroicaStradeBianche]

Yes another Katusha, they've signed some big names but don't seem to have a serious project around them. I don't know. Saronni was average managing low-budget Lampre, it's unclear also what are their real objectives and what the sponsors want.

 

[tobydawq]

I imagine they wanted a decently-groomed poster boy for their Alpecin shampoo commercials. And along came Marcel. Bye bye to Kristoff who had become too fat anyways.

 

[drebelo]

If I'm not mistaken Emirates have only two wins this season throw kristoff in abu dhabi and oman but besides that he completly failed the cobbled classics, Aru had the tirreno where his 4th place in the queen stage has the only thing relatively good, and with martin I don´t know wahts being up with him. In stage races he hasn´t been slightly relevant and in amstel he did a DNF and I´m not seeing him bouncing back in fleche and Liege.

 

[May0maniac]

Let's see how they do in the Gts, but until now they had a pretty bad season.
You'd expect more from the reunited Saunier Duval dream team, but that kind of talk probably belongs into another subforum.

 

[Leinster]

After a pretty desperate start to the season, you have to say 2 stage wins, a gc top 10, and the overall combativity award is a pretty great return for the team.

 

[Inquitus]

Re:

After a pretty desperate start to the season, you have to say 2 stage wins, a gc top 10, and the overall combativity award is a pretty great return for the team.

Aye their season has been kind of rescued, a win on the Champs-Élysées for Kristoff is huge, and 8th in the GC plus a Mûr-de-Bretagne Stage 6 win with Martin puts a far more positive spin on things

 

[Leinster]

Exactly, after a pretty horrible spring classics/early season stage races, their 2018 suddenly looks a lot more productive than, say, Lotto Soudal.

 

[happytramp]

Re: Re:

After a pretty desperate start to the season, you have to say 2 stage wins, a gc top 10, and the overall combativity award is a pretty great return for the team.

Aye their season has been kind of rescued, a win on the Champs-Élysées for Kristoff is huge, and 8th in the GC plus a Mûr-de-Bretagne Stage 6 win with Martin puts a far more positive spin on things

If either of them do the Vuelta it could look a lot better too. Dan seems to have timed his peak for later in the year too.

 

[Leinster]

According to Stickybottle, Martin's doing the Vuelta. He could conceivably do a good ride in San Sebastian too.

With the Worlds being the route that it is, it's hard to see what's left for Kristoff in the rest of the season, bar maybe the Binckbank or Paris-Tours, so I'd say if he wants a stage win or two to pad the Palmares, the Vuelta might be on the cards.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

In the end the quality of their leaders saved their season: if you hire two guys still in their peak years who have between them won four of the five Monuments, it is likely that they will produce some big wins even if they muck up their targets in Spring. But the wider team is still not good. Martin and Kristoff produced largely under their own steam. Ulissi took a good win and that might kickstart his season too, but again if it does or doesn’t will be down to him. The team won’t help him much.

If they have as big a budget as has been suggested, they might bring in more stars. What they really need is to bring in better support for whoever they have leading. You can’t send a sprinter and a GC man to the Tour and have the sprinter surf wheels and the GC man take a stage after being invited to follow his old team’s wheels. At least one of them has to get serious support.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

By the way I admire Kristoff’s attitude. He was very honest after the early stages saying that other guys were just faster but that he hoped to get stronger as the race went on and his opponents got weaker.

 

[Lequack]

And look who is their newest sports director, none other than Neil Stephens, formerly one of them most prominent sports directors in Orica Greenedge (now Mitchelton Scott). I always loved watching his shenanigans in the Backstage pass of Vuealta a Espana.

The news article:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/neil-stephens-joins-peiper-as-directeur-sportif-at-uae-team-emirates/

 

[Breh]

No doubt they've massively improved their staff. Stephens, Peiper and Matxin Fernandez especially. There's a reason a promising rider like Philipsen chose UAE over other teams.

 

[42x16ss]

Re:

No doubt they've massively improved their staff. Stephens, Peiper and Matxin Fernandez especially. There's a reason a promising rider like Philipsen chose UAE over other teams.

IMHO the signings of Stephens, Peiper and Matxin are at least as important as their rider signings. Peiper and Stephens in particular have a lot to offer.

 

[armchairclimber]

Ah, I'm glad there's a thread .... I was thinking about starting one. There were many disparaging remarks about UAE in the close season but they really have turned things around. And it's the young riders that are really impressing. Philipsen and Pogacar especially. Two races won by 20 year olds. They have rather eclipsed Evenepoel so far this year. With Gaviria and Consonni also showing well they've been up there with Quickstep and Astana so far this season.

 

[Nirvana]

Re: Re:

No doubt they've massively improved their staff. Stephens, Peiper and Matxin Fernandez especially. There's a reason a promising rider like Philipsen chose UAE over other teams.

IMHO the signings of Stephens, Peiper and Matxin are at least as important as their rider signings. Peiper and Stephens in particular have a lot to offer.

I think the sacking of Saronni helped even more, the only good thing he has done as team manager was finding the big money, looking at riders improved under him there is only Ballan whereas there are dozens of riders not improved, faded or even disappeared in their tenure in the team.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

Ah, I'm glad there's a thread .... I was thinking about starting one. There were many disparaging remarks about UAE in the close season but they really have turned things around. And it's the young riders that are really impressing. Philipsen and Pogacar especially. Two races won by 20 year olds. They have rather eclipsed Evenepoel so far this year. With Gaviria and Consonni also showing well they've been up there with Quickstep and Astana so far this season.

It's a bit weird to compare them to Evenepoel. As they are more experienced and had some years in U23. Evenepoel went straight from junior to Pro, incomparable. Try comparing Evenepoel to the first year of people like Ulissi and Mohoric.

 

[armchairclimber]

Re: Re:

Ah, I'm glad there's a thread .... I was thinking about starting one. There were many disparaging remarks about UAE in the close season but they really have turned things around. And it's the young riders that are really impressing. Philipsen and Pogacar especially. Two races won by 20 year olds. They have rather eclipsed Evenepoel so far this year. With Gaviria and Consonni also showing well they've been up there with Quickstep and Astana so far this season.

It's a bit weird to compare them to Evenepoel. As they are more experienced and had some years in U23. Evenepoel went straight from junior to Pro, incomparable. Try comparing Evenepoel to the first year of people like Ulissi and Mohoric.

Well, in as much as they are all very young lads in their first year on WT teams it's not so wild but in any case, I expect Evenepoel to really join the fun sooner rather than later.

 

[Lequack]

Fernando Gaviria says joining UAE Team Emirates was best option for his future :
https://sport360.com/article/other/cycling/318948/fernando-gaviria-says-joining-uae-team-emirates-was-best-option-for-his-future

 

[Lequack]

2020 bois

 

[Squire]

Rui Costa hidden away at the back and Molano lined up with the big boys in the front row?

 

[Lequack]