Tadej Pogacar leads an experienced team for the 2023 Tour de France after UAE Team Emirates announced its eight-rider line-up for the race on Monday.
Pogacar, the two-time Tour de France champion, will aim to win the world's most prestigious road race for a third time in four years having been narrowly beaten last year by Team Jumbo-Visma's Jonas Vingegaard. The 2023 tour begins on Saturday in Bilbao, Spain.
The 24-year-old Slovenian will be supported by a combination of climbers and flat-terrain experts.
Assistance in the mountains will come from Polish rider Rafal Majka – winner of the tour's mountain classification in 2014 and 2016 – Britain's Adam Yates, who won the white jersey for best young rider in 2014 and has 11 grand tour stage victories to his name, 2022 Austrian national champion Felix Grossschartner, and Spain's Marc Soler.
UAE Team Emirates' best chances of success in the flat stages will likely come from Italian sprinter Matteo Trentin, who has won three stages at the Tour de France and is a former European Road Race champion. Denmark's Mikkel Bjerg and Norwegian Vegard Stake Laengen complete the line-up.
Sports manager Joxean Matxin Fernandez will lead the squad alongside sports directors Andrej Hauptman, Simone Pedrazzini, and Marco Marcato.
“The Tour is one of the biggest events in world sport and we’re very pleased and excited to be a part of it," Pogacar said. "As a team we have worked so hard to prepare and everything is where it needs to be, we have a very good group. There will be some serious competitors but that will always be the case in the biggest races. We are going there to put on a good show and of course with the aim of victory.”
Pogacar, the world's top-ranked road cyclist, is one of the leading favourites to win the 2023 Tour de France, which is expected to be a direct battle between the Slovenian and defending champion Vingegaard.
Pogacar has had a remarkably successful season so far, claiming 12 victories and making history along the way before sustaining a broken wrist during the Liege-Bastogne-Liege in April. He returned last week to collect wins 13 and 14 by completing the National Championships double, winning the time trial and road race.
The 2023 Tour de France will comprise 21 stages, starting with a 182km hill stage in Bilbao. There will be a total of eight flat stages, four hilly stages, eight mountain stages with four summit finishes (Cauterets-Cambasque, Puy de Dome, Grand Colombier and Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc), and one individual time trial. The 21st and final stage will conclude in Paris on July 23.
