The success of UAE Team Emirates in 2023, where it finished as the number 1 team in the UCI rankings, serves as motivation for the current season, which started this month. And Matxin Joxean Fernández, team manager, shared some goals for the next competitions with the Spanish newspaper AS.
According to Matxin, the team started the year more calmly than the previous one, focusing on putting together a solid team for each race, and in many cases, up to three leaders. The objective is for each of the leaders to take a step forward in the competitions and continue accumulating points in the rankings.
Planning for 2024: blocks for races and Grand Tours
“This year we started a little calmer than the previous one, because the idea was not to start at full steam. At the Tour Down Under we had Jay Vine, but Isaac del Toro was a surprise. The idea is to have a block for each test and two leaders, in many cases up to three.”
“For example, now in Valencia we will have Sivakov and Grobschartner; in the Algarve, Hirschi and João Almeida; in Oman, del Toro and Adam Yates; in Arabia, Fisher-Black and Majka… everything is structured”, says the Basque.
Matxin emphasized the importance of planning ahead and having clarity on the team structure for each race. “We have already defined the teams for the Giro, Tour and Vuelta, and the Tour de France line-up will be one of the strongest in recent years, with Pogacar, Ayuso, Almeida and Adam Yates, among others”, shares the team manager.
Reference cyclist is Tadej Pogacar
What is not in doubt is the team’s leader and reference: Tadej Pogacar.
“He will do even better than last year, I am convinced. He is our unique leader for all his merits. We know that it is an absolute guarantee for the Tour even if we also do the Giro this year.”
“He won’t race as much before heading to Italy and will arrive at the Tour with 31 days of competition. If you had to try any year, it would be this one. The rivals seem more important to me than the route”, says Matxin about the Slovenian, who spent days at the Valencia velodrome perfecting details, such as the aerodynamic position on the bike.
Search for perfection
Winning the Giro and the Tour in the same year is a feat that no one has managed to achieve since Marco Pantani in 1998. However, for Matxin, neither cycling nor the cyclists of the past can be compared to those of today.
“I see a great winning mentality within the team that is accompanied by good harmony. We have great individuals on the team, but if you bring them all together as a collective… that’s what we try, to seek perfection”, concluded Matxin, expressing the team’s ambition for the 2024 season.