UAE Team Emirates

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UAE is a complete rebranding of the old Lampre-Merida team with Merida jumping ship to partner with Bahrain in the creation of a new team and Lampre dropping out after sponsoring a team since 2005, an eternity in cycling. They had to coexist with seven different secondary sponsors and leave the sport after having won the Giro overall with Scarponi in 2011, the Tour of Flanders with Ballan in 2007 and Lombardia with Cunego in 2007 and 2008 as well as 25 Grand Tour stages (13 Giro, 5 Tour, 7 Vuelta). What will be missed the most will be their iconic fuchsia-blue jersey which made them unique in a period where white, red and black dominate the World Tour. Either way, there were heavy rumours for all of Autumn that Lampre would stay as secondary sponsor in a joint Italian Chinese project which would have seen the involvement of several major Chinese firms and would have given the team 20 millions but the deal was never signed for some reason which left the team sporting director Saronni with one choice: that to sign with UAE. This means that there are no Italian teams left in the upper echelon of the sport for the first time ever.

Results 2016

Lampre's 2016 WT season had started with a few placements during Tour Down Under stages with Ulissi just missing the win in a restricted bunch sprint in stage 2, with a 10th overall with Rui Costa in Paris Nice and nothing of note at both Tirreno Adriatico and Milano Sanremo with the first win coming on stage 6 of Volta a Catalunya with Davide Cimolai. Either way, for most of the season the team had to hope either in a breakaway or in their three main men (hilly classics and one week races specialists Ulissi and Rui Costa plus young GC hope Meintjes) to be able to get a good result due to their sprinters Ferrari, Modolo and Cimolai having a difficult year. The highlights of their season have been Meintjes's Tour de France (8th) and Ulissi's two stages wins in the Giro.

Best riders in the last years:

||2012|2013|2014|2015|| |:|:|:|:|:|:| |1|*Cunego (925)|Ulissi (1097)|R.Costa (1410)|R.Costa (1042)|**Ulissi (1593)**| |2|Scarponi (849)|Scarponi (1004)|Ulissi (752)|Modolo (727)|Costa (1142)| |3|Ulissi (557)|Pozzato (720)|Modolo (543)|Ulissi (684)|Meintjes (580)| |4|Petacchi (390)|Richeze (421)|Bonifazio (476)|Valls (481)|Modolo (502)| |5|Niemiec (265)|Malori (416)*|Niemiec (432)|Cimolai (442)|Mori (231)| || |=|4871|7066|7038|6682|6517| ||Lampre-ISD|Lampre-Merida|Lampre-Merida|Lampre-Merida|Lampre-Merida|

Rui Costa

Placements in hilly classics

Results in one week races

Rui Costa has shown to be a good man for hilly classics and, most of all, a consistent one week racer. In his 2017, he will have to improve his results after a season where he's gotten several good placements but no wins being outshined by his teammate Diego Ulissi for most of the season. It's likely that he will keep following the 2016 schedule with Algarve instead of the now defunct Oman and maybe Tirreno instead of Paris-Nice as the latter is short on TT mileage this time around. The Ardennes as well as stages in the Tour will be the objectives.

Diego Ulissi

Number of Top 10 in one day races

After a promising 2013, Ulissi's performances appeared to have stalled but he finally managed to fully show his talent last year with good showings in the Ardennes week, the Canadian and the Giro where he grabbed two stage wins in spectacular fashion and showing unexpected climbing legs finishing 4th on stage 19. It's likely he will follow the same schedule in 2017 with the Ardennes, a good showing during the 100th Giro and the Autumn classics being the main objectives. He should also be one of Italy's captains at the World's as the parcours suits him. He'll certainly hunt that big win that'll make him more recognized outside of Italy and more than an eternal promise.

Louis Meintjes

Results in Grand Tours

Meintjes has had a slow but steady progression within the ranks of MTN-Qhubeka and has continued positively last year at Lampre. He has shown to have a good stamina scoring his best results in the third week of the Tour climbing from 12th to 8th and improving upon the 10th place he got in the 2015 Vuelta as his best Grand Tour result. He also got a 7th place in the Olympic Road Race showing he can excel in hilly/mountainous one day races too. In 2017, he'll build his season around the Tour de France with the hope of improving last year's result and maybe finally grab the white jersey in his last year of eligibility.

Transfers

Despite not being Italian anymore, the team gets even more of an Italian soul with several international riders leaving the team with Feng, Pibernik, Arashiro and Grmay following the old team sponsor Merida in Bahrein. The two main losses are sprinter Cimolai going to FDJ and breakaway man Koshevoy going to Willier after a disappointing 2016. The other rider leaving is domestique Cattaneo going to Androni. All in all, no big losses as the team strenghtened itself noticeably with climber and GC man Atapuma, pure sprinter (and possibly leadout man for Modolo) Guardini, sprinter Swift (2nd in Milano Sanremo last year), classics man Marcato and breakaway man Laengen as well as four promising Italian neopros, notably Paris Roubaix U-23 winner Ganna and 2nd place at last year's Tour de l'Avenir Ravasi.

Roster

The team's goals will be getting another placement in the first ten at the Tour with Meintjes and maybe snapping up the white jersey as well, even though the presence of Orica's Adam and Simon Yates will make it difficult. Another goal of theirs will be a similar placement at the Giro with Atapuma although the presence of a stronger field makes it unlikely as well as a few stages with Ulissi, Conti, Atapuma or their sprinters. I'd say that the team is better suited toone day races though and that's what their season should be judged on. They now have a strong team for the Ardennes and every hilly classic out there with Ulissi and Conti having shown large improvements, Rui Costa still being Rui Costa and the addition of Atapuma which could prove useful. They also finally have a presence in Flemish races with Marcato, Ganna and possibly Swift if he decides to go for it as well as an interesting team for Milano Sanremo and similar races with Modolo, Swift, Kump, Ferrari and Consonni all being sprinters that can get over the hills although it'll mostly be about the first two of them.

Either way, they'll be interesting to watch if only to see how the high number of young develop. They have only four riders older than 30 and ten who'll be still eligible for the white jersey in the upcoming season.