Ahead of his first race in the new role of Sport Director, Elia Viviani talks us through the team's planning and approach to the seven-day UAE Tour.
Hi everyone. Myself and the team are really excited to fly out to UAE Tour and put our plans into action.
We have a strong team with different options to play during the week, which is really important for a race like this. A key focus during the week will be around the sprint stages with Sam Welsford. He's showed how strong he is at the Tour Down Under with a win already this season. The goal is to support him with a strong lead-out with Connor [Swift], Ben [Swift], Josh [Tarling] and Artem [Shmidt] and put him in the position to do his best in the sprints versus some of the best sprinters in the world. The sprint field is always exceptional at UAE Tour and it’s a challenge everyone is looking forward to.
Another important day for us will be the stage two time trial on Tuesday, and the goal is to win it with Josh. It’s his first race this season and it’s a stage he won last year over the same distance (12.2km). We are confident he can compete for the win this year too and he will have our full support.
From a GC perspective we will give the opportunity to Embret Svestad-Bardseng to continue to develop as a GC leader. It will be a good week where he can learn and do his best without the pressure of results. For Peter Øxenberg, similarly it will be a week of learning and continuing his promising progress as a GC rider. The two summit finishes (stage three and six) will be really good tests. With so much experience, Ben Swift will be our road captain in the race and we know it's a role which he really suits. We have a nice team with a mix of younger and experienced riders and we’re ready for any situation, which you have to be in this race. Most years you will see echelons and some crazy stages in the crosswinds.
For me it’s my first time in this new Sport Director role, supporting Xabi Zandio on this race. Everyone is really excited to start the UAE Tour on Monday and we will give everything to continue the team's promising start to the season.
Thanks, Elia.