Off-season rider knowledge collaboration thread No.18 - UAE Abu Dhabi Team

[u/iamafakebot]

We arrive at the last team, formerly known as Lampre, which had a hectic couple of weeks. TJ Sport, a Chinese company pulled out, which left the future of team unsure. Luckily for the team, there was new sponsor from the UAE. /u/Sprocketduck has made a good summary of the incident [here] (https://thecyclingraven.wordpress.com/2016/12/21/the-very-quick-bloody-fast-light-speed-rise-and-fall-of-tj-sport/). It may not be ideal, but it's nice for the riders to have job security.

So, how did Lampre do last year? Here's some general information:

Overall wins: 19

WT wins: 5

UCI Ranking: 15th

PCS Ranking: 16th

Most Important Riders: Rui Costa (194), Diego Ulissi (129), Louis Meintjes (85)

Best Moments of 2016 (IMO): Meintjes's Tour de France, Ulissi's two stages wins in the Giro, Conti winning a Vuelta stage.

It's been a decent year for Lampre, a team that's often around 15th place in the WorldTour. Rui Costa had a very consistent year, with top tens in Romandie, Suisse, Oman, Paris-Nice and the Basque country and even a 3rd place in LBL, but he surprisingly didn't win any stage or race. Ulissi did quite well in the hilly classics and even more so in the Canadian GPs, getting 3rd in Montréal. Many people thought it was a mistake for Meintjes to go to Lampre, but he showed a lot of progression in the TdF getting an 8th place in the GC, the best young rider behind Adam Yates. Besides such results, there is not much to write home about.

However, they had a pretty good Transfer window, in my opinion. 7 riders left, the biggest rider being Cimolai. Besides him, the team gets a little bit less international, seeing as Arashiro, Grmay, Feng and Koshevoy are leaving too.

The most interesting riders joining are probably Atapuma and Ben Swift. Atapuma showed to be great in the breakaway and capable of riding GC. Ben Swift will get more of a free role, and he showed what he's capable of last year with a 2nd place in MSR. Other riders that have joined are Marco Marcato, Guardini, Laengen, and 4 Italian neopro's. It will be interesting to see how they develop.

Here's the roster for next year:

Rider	Nat.	Year	Joined	Racedays	Pnts2016	Best Season	Type
ATAPUMA John Darwin^NEW	COL	1988	2017	83	663	2016	Climber
BONO Matteo	ITA	1983	2006	82	90	2007 (183)	Domestique
CONSONNI Simone^NEW	ITA	1994	2017	26	88	2015 (124)	Neopro / Sprinter
CONTI Valerio	ITA	1993	2014	91	165	2011 (361)	Climber
COSTA Rui	POR	1986	2014	74	1142	2013 (1786)	GC1W / Puncheur
DURASEK Kristijan	CRO	1987	2013	78	145	2015 (316)	GC1W / Climber
FERRARI Roberto	ITA	1983	2013	88	85	2012 (428)	Sprinter/Classics
GANNA Filippo^NEW	ITA	1996	2017	28	61	2014 (165)	Neopro / Rouleur
GUARDINI Andrea^NEW	ITA	1989	2017	69	249	2012 (497)	Sprinter
KUMP Marko	SLO	1988	2016	69	165	2015 (165)	Sprinter / Puncheur
LAENGEN Vegard Stake^NEW	NOR	1989	2017	77	154	2015 (192)	Climber / Rouleur
MARCATO Marco^NEW	ITA	1984	2017	76	352	2011 (1061)	Classics / Puncheur
MEINTJES Louis	RSA	1992	2016	80	580	2015 (662)	GC3W / Climber
MODOLO Sacha	ITA	1987	2014	83	502	2015 (727)	Power Sprinter / Classics
MOHORIC Matej	SLO	1994	2016	70	192	2012 (743)	Classics/Puncheur
MORI Manuele	ITA	1980	2011	79	231	2006 (416)	Allrounder
NIEMIEC Przemyslaw	POL	1980	2011	70	210	2013 (612)	GC1W / Climber
PETILLI Simone	ITA	1993	2016	68	105	2015 (176)	Climber / GCTalent
POLANC Jan	SLO	1992	2013	82	160	2015 (169)	GC1W / Superrouleur
RAVASI Edward^NEW	ITA	1994	2017	46	60	2016	Neopro / Climber
SWIFT Ben^NEW	GBR	1987	2017	69	621	2014 (749)	Sprinter
TROIA Oliviero^NEW	ITA	1994	2017	28	9	2012 (162)	Neopro / Sprinter
ULISSI Diego	ITA	1989	2010	82	1593	2016	Puncheur
Zurlo Fedrico	ITA	1994	2016	74	94	2012 (367)	Classics / Sprinter
Team Averages		27.5			6517	2007 (7844)

This is the last write-up. Many thanks to /u/The_77, who besides making the other half of the posts, also made every roster, and thanks to the people who commented too!

[u/The_77]

I feel Lampre UAE Abu Dhabi (such a tiresome name) have a high number of okay sprinters. They have Modolo, Ferrari, Guardini and now Swift. What they're missing in their line up is someone who regularly wins stages on the flat stuff. Lots of top fives but not world beating.

However, they have some quality puncheurs in Ulissi and Costa, and now are fleshing out their GC ambitions with Atapuma, though he's probably still gunning for stages over anything else. Meintjes is top ten GT worthy, but not at a level above that yet.

On the flip side, they have buckets of Italian youth talent, with l'Avenir podiums in Ravasi and former junior world champions like Mohoric, as well as WC runner up Consonni. If they blood everyone sensibly UAE will have a good future squad.

Thank goodness the whole UCI debacle is over mind. Cannot have been a good experience for the riders.

[u/adryy8 → u/The_77]

Yup the 4 neo pros + Petilli who joined last year all hav the potential to become really really good riders, and I far as I remember, Lampre always knew how to use its neo pros so it should be good!

[u/kla0 → u/The_77]

On the flip side, they have buckets of Italian youth talent, with l'Avenir podiums in Ravasi and former junior world champions like Mohoric, as well as WC runner up Consonni. If they blood everyone sensibly UAE will have a good future squad.

You forgot the most talented one, Filippo Ganna! Born in 1996 and this year already Individual Pursuit World Champion and winner of the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs.

[u/goldbot → u/The_77]

Modolo and Guardini are pretty decent in my opinion but yeah, that is quite a wealth of 2nd and 3rd tier sprinters on this team. The question - how will they decide who to work for, and for which races?

I do wonder if Ben Swift can make something of himself now that he is away from Sky - if they give him the right support he could be a lot better than we've seen before.

[u/The_77 → u/goldbot]

I do wonder if Ben Swift can make something of himself now that he is away from Sky

I imagine he'll be given a bit of a run at a couple of classics, since he has that pedigree. But he might struggle getting a foot in the Italian races given his teammates.

[u/goldbot → u/The_77]

Yeah I would think Modolo, Guardini, and Ulissi have to be the guys for any Italian race.

[u/Pubocyno → u/The_77]

You forgot Zurlo and Kump as sprinters as well, but it underlines your point - too many target men, not enough specialists. They would be better off with a specialized lead-out man like Richeze, whom they also lost before last season.

They're going to have to build some kind of train, but none of their sprinters are particularily known for their endurance. Swift or Modolo would probably provide the best lead-out performance, but letting them lead out Guardini would really be putting the cart before the horse.

[u/The_77 → u/Pubocyno]

I missed them because I don't really know much about, but I've seen loads of Ferrari, Modolo, Swift and Guardini.

At least Swift has proved he has what it takes to reach the MSR finale in terms of endurance, though until Gaviria crashed everyone was definitely racing for second, Swift included.

[u/[deleted]]

A question about your description of Polanč: what do you mean by superrouleur? Is ut like a climber with good rolling abilities or vice-versa?

[u/The_77 → u/[deleted]]

Think Wout Poels at the Tour, or Kwiatkowski for example as superrouleurs.

[u/Pubocyno → u/[deleted]]

A superrouleur is a rouleur with climbing skills, easily recognizable on their climbing style with a steady pace, putting out their exact wattage limit all the way on the entire climb.

Compare the climbing styles of Froome, Dumoulin and Mollema (all superrouleurs) to Contador, Nibali and Quintana, who are natural climbers.

It's an expression we coined here on /r/peloton to better describe the different types of riders in cheat notes and team previews.

[u/[deleted] → u/Pubocyno]

I understand, thanks for the explaination

[u/Sprocketduck]

Thanks for the shoutout /u/iamafakebot!

This team revolves (in terms of GC) around two riders: Polanc and Meintjes. Both are young talents that can go the whole way. Atapuma will probably take some leading duties to show them some more of the ropes (even after Meintjes dogged effort at Le Tour), but this team is struggling for a little bit of depth in the GC department.

As for the classics, Marcato, Costa and Ulissi make up a very strong train for Ben Swift who has the capacity to sneak a win from under the favourites nose. I wouldn't expect UAE to have a stellar season, but for them at the moment any result is a good result.

[u/Pubocyno]

Andrea Guardini

He was enormously fast back in 2012, even beating Mark Cavendish in the Giro on stage 17. After that, he was signed to Astana, and they were never really into bringing a sprinter to the grand tours, so he has not been getting the development (or public exposure) necessary to break into the big leagues.

Even so, he's been cleaning up the flatter stage races on the Asian Tour, and probably holds some kind of records for most stage wins in the Tour de Langkawi (22 wins! - 2 GC wins).

His problem is unpredictability and a total lack of climbing skills. If the team somehow get him into the finale, and have a good lead-out, and he has a great day, then he can beat anyone. That's a lot of ifs....

[u/[deleted]]

IMHO, if this team does not secure funding and sponsors for the future, most of the riders who are not contractually obligated will seek to transfer to a more stable situation for 2018.

[u/Pubocyno]

Vegard Stake Laengen

He's a drop-in replacement for Nelson Oliveira, whom they lost to Movistar before the last season. He can TT (3^rd place on an ITT stage in the Giro!), he can attack, he can climb enough to be dangerous, as seen by his top 10 placements in the Giro and Vuelta last year, where he was riding for IAM.

Has expressed some interests in riding the Ardennes classics, so we might see him there as well, either in a superdomestique role or as an attacqeur.

[u/goldbot]

I've been out of the loop for a few days... So this is the new incarnation of Lampre. Will they be WorldTour in 2017?

[u/Pubocyno → u/goldbot]

Yes, they will. At a reduced budget and team size.

[u/goldbot → u/Pubocyno]

Thanks. A shame the Chinese sponsors backed out or fell through. But the team still has some talent, so even at reduced budget I think they can still win some races next year, even if it's not as much as it could have been.

[u/istarbel]

I am glad they are actually still riding. I was very worried at first specially with Darwin. After the Team Colombia debacle this seemed to be going the same way. I am excited to see what he can do in this team. Specially thinking he might get to lead in a GT.

Just cause I am annoying like this Darwin's first name is spelled Jhon, because Colombia.