Costa and Modolo to lead UAE Team Emirates at Tour de Pologne - News shorts

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UAE Team Emirates will take on the upcoming Tour de Pologne with a squad headlined by Rui Costa and Sacha Modolo.

For Costa, the seven-day WorldTour event will be a return to competition after several weeks of altitude training. The Portuguese rider last raced in June's Tour de Suisse, where he finished fifth overall.

Veteran all-rounder Przemyslaw Niemiec will also be in the lineup for his home race, as will speedster Roberto Ferrari.

"The route will be slightly different from the ones in the last few seasons; a hilly [stage] has been added to the third day of racing. I think that in any case, the [stages] that define the general classification will be the sixth and seventh. Rui Costa is the most outstanding rider in our selection, and Modolo is our speedster for the sprints," said sports director Daniele Righi. "It's worth considering that all seven of our riders are returning to racing after some time off, during which they focused on training for the second part of the season."

UAE Team Emirates for the Tour de Pologne: Anass Ait el Abdia, Valerio Conti, Rui Costa, Roberto Ferrari, Sacha Modolo, Matej Mohoric, Przemyslaw Niemiec

Gazprom – RusVelo unveil Tour de Pologne roster

Pro Continental outfit Gazprom-RusVelo announced their seven riders for the Tour de Pologne on Wednesday.

The event marked the team's first WorldTour appearance back in 2014. A team release described the upcoming edition of the stage race as 'one of the central races for Gazprom-RusVelo in the second part of the season.'

The squad will bring a stage-hunting focus to the race, expecting speedsters Roman Maikin, Alexander Porsev and Alexey Tsatevich to factor in the flatter stages. Porsev won the Russian national road race championship in June.

Gazprom-RusVelo for the Tour de Pologne: Pavel Brutt, Roman Maikin, Sergey Lagutin, Evgeny Shalunov, Ivan Rovny, Alexander Porsev, Alexey Tsatevich

Belkov and Kochetkov re-up with Katusha-Alpecin

Katusha-Alpecin announced Wednesday that veterans Pavel Kochetkov and Maxim Belkov had re-signed with the team.

Kochetkov, Russia's 2016 national road champion, will stay on through 2019, with team general manager José Azevedo describing him as an "important rider in the teams built for Ilnur Zakarin."

Belkov will continue with the team through 2018. The 32-year-old Russian won a stage of the 2013 Giro d'Italia, and supported the team's Zakarin-led Giro campaigns in the last few editions of the race.

BMC Racing sign development team's Müller and Welten as stagiares

Only a few days after the announcement that BMC Development Team would shut down following the 2017 season, BMC Racing announced Wednesday that development riders Patrick Müller and Bram Welten would join the WorldTour squad as stagiares for the remainder of the year.

Müller, 21, who hails from Switzerland, delivered several strong rides in the under-23 Classics this spring, finishing in the top 10 of the U23 editions of Gent-Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Dutchman Welten, 20, won May's Grand Prix Criquielion and was second on the first stage of the Baby Giro.

Müller will make his BMC Racing debut at the upcoming Tour of Utah, while Welten will debut with the team at the Arctic Race of Norway, according to a BMC press release.