Dylan Teuns made his debut for Israel-Premier Tech at the Egmont Cycling Race on Tuesday, kicking off a block of racing in which he's acting as something of a firefighter.
The Belgian puncheur was already set to leave Bahrain Victorious to sign from 2023, but that was accelerated to a rare mid-season transfer, with the Israel team deep in danger of being relegated from the WorldTour.
Guy Sagiv was removed from the roster to make room for Teuns, who won La Flèche Wallonne in the spring and is hoped to boost the team's haul of UCI ranking points to help drag them to safety.
"I cannot save the team on my own, but I will do my best," Teuns told Belgian broadcaster Sporza at the Egmont Cycling Race, where he placed 47th and did not score points, although teammate Giacomo Nizzolo placed fifth.
Teuns will race the more selective Druivenkoers-Overijse on Wednesday, before the Bretagne Classic-Ouest France at the weekend. He will then head to the Tour of Britain, where a strong overall finish will be his main points-hunting objective.
After that, he'll head to Australia to ride the World Championships for Belgium and will return to Europe to ride Il Lombardia, potentially preceded by another one or two Italian autumn one-day races.
Only the points of 10 riders count towards a team's total, so Teuns will have to break into Israel's top 10 scorers before contributing, but that's a relatively low bar of 126 points. Teuns had 1,073 for the season before his transfer, while his team lie almost 1,000 points from the safety of 18th place.
"It is not the case that we have specifically sat together to determine how many points I have to collect everywhere," Teuns insisted.
Teuns nevertheless explained there was more to his signing than ranking points. He was set to make the move in January, but growing discontent at Bahrain Victorious accelerated the situation.
The team was subject to international police doping raids at the Tour de France, which he reacted strongly to at the time, while the team's proposed racing schedule after the Tour was not to his liking.
"The rumours were certainly not good for my image, but now I am elsewhere and hopefully I am free of those ailments. In the end I left on good terms. The sporting aspect was the deciding factor," Teuns said.
"In any case, there had been no concrete proposal from Bahrain for the next two years. Then you know it's time to look for other places. Moreover, they had only planned five racing days, which was poor. I wouldn't call my departure in a hurry, but it was last minute."
