Dubai: UAE Team Emirates will tackle their first Tour de France starting this Saturday, July 1, to July 23, with a strong line-up of climbers and attackers all seeking stage wins in cycling’s ultimate test.
South Africa’s Louis Meintjes, who finished eighth overall and second in the young rider’s classification of last year’s Tour de France, will lead a team of nine riders in a bid for the Yellow Jersey in the 104th edition of the 3,500-km 21-stage race, which starts in Dusseldorf, Germany on Saturday, and ends in Paris on July 23.
“Last year I placed eighth overall at the Tour and I’m hoping to move up in the general classification this year,” said Meintjes. “I am hoping that the first week goes smoothly with no obstacles and that when the mountain stages come around my performance is as good as it was during the Criterium du Dauphine.”
The Criterium du Dauphine is an annual 1,155-km eight-stage warm-up for the Tour de France. Meintjes finished eighth overall at the Dauphine earlier this month, with the team getting five top 10 stage finishes. Ben Swift got three of those top 10s including a second place finish in stage seven. Meintjes and Diego Ulissi got the other two top 10 finishes.
“This year’s Tour will be different from my previous experiences at this race,” said Swift. “I have the freedom to hunt for my own stage victories as opposed to just supporting the team. This is a newfound freedom in my career that I am excited to explore. In the past, I always worked for the team, and now I’m happy that UAE Team Emirates has put their trust and faith in me to tackle the stages that are most suited to my abilities.”
Ulissi said: “This will be my race debut — it is a race I have obviously wanted to tackle all my life. I am constantly looking to find new challenges in my career and want to experience first-hand cycling’s oldest and most prestigious race. My objective is to try and win stages, however I am aware that this is one of the most difficult goals as everyone is trying to do the same.”
The Tour de France was first held in 1903 and is the oldest and most prestigious of three Grands Tours attracting over 10 million spectators along the route a year. The race’s nickname, La Grande Boucle, which means ‘The Large Loop’ refers to the route taken around many parts of France which alternates each year between clockwise and anticlockwise loops.
Alongside Meintjes, Swift and Ulissi will be Darwin Atapuma, Matteo Bono, Kristijan Durasek, Vegard Stake Laengen, Marco Marcato and Manuele Mori.
UAE Team Emirates’ sporting director Mario Scirea said: “We are quite confident with the team line-up taking part in this year’s Tour especially following the good performance at the Criterium du Dauphine. The riders are in good form and have worked so hard as a team during this last month on their altitude training on Mount San Pellegrino in Italy.”
