UAE Team Emirates have announced their Tour de France squad to support Tadej Pogačar as the two-time winner takes aim at the second part of the Giro-Tour double, with no surprise selections among the seven-man team set to back the Slovenian star.
The team will be able to boast the strongest climbing squad at the race when the Tour de France kicks off in Tuscany on June 29, with 2023 podium finisher Adam Yates and another podium candidate Juan Ayuso both part of the line-up.
Yates, who recently won the Tour de Suisse, and Tour de France debutant Ayuso, who won Itzulia Basque Country in the spring, will be joined by Tour de Suisse runner-up João Almeida, like Ayuso racing in the Tour de France for the first time.
Yet more climbing support for Pogacar will be present in the shape of Pavel Sivakov, a new recruit from Ineos Grenadiers for 2024.
The team is rounded out with Spanish domestique Marc Soler, Belgian puncheur Tim Wellens, and a man for the flat in German Classics specialist Nils Politt.
Pogačar, who was last in action in May when he dominated the Giro d'Italia with six stage wins and a winning margin of 9:56, said that he's "really excited" to return to the Tour, adding that preparation for the race has gone well.
"It's already my fifth time coming to the Tour, and I'm really excited about it," he said. "We've worked really hard all year as a team to prepare for this and we hope we can give everyone watching three weeks of exciting racing.
"It's nice also to be going back to Italy again to start the Tour. Obviously, I'm coming from there with good memories of the Giro and thankfully I can say that preparation has gone very well since then. I took a bit of a break after the Giro and then the past weeks have been fully focussed on the Tour.
"We've spent a lot of time together as a group training at altitude and put in a lot of hours in the saddle. We're in a really good place as a group and I think now we just can't wait to get started and hope to fight for the win and put on a good show."
Yates said the team is in a "really good place" as a group, while Almeida hailed the team's performance in Switzerland as a "confidence booster". Ayuso, meanwhile, said that he'll try and "soak it all in as much as possible" while staying committed to assisting Pogačar in his quest for another Tour victory.
"I've dreamed of being at the Tour de France since I was a kid so to be here about to start my first Tour feels amazing," Ayuso said.
"It's a privilege to be part of a race like this in a team like this so I will try and soak it all in as much as possible, but we have a big objective also, and that is to win.
"We're coming from a good block of training at Isola and the group is really united and motivated so we can hope for good things over the next three weeks."
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