Vincenzo Nibali to start 2019 season in UAE Tour
Feb 23 2019 04:10 am CET
Photo of Vincenzo Nibali by Jonathan Roorda / CyclingPub.com
Vincenzo Nibali is set to start his 2019 season at the UAE Tour. The rider will have the company of Time Trial World Champion Rohan Dennis.
Nibali adds to the strong field of GC contenders for the newly created race. Bahrain-Merida will also start in the race with Phil Bauhaus, who will be the man for the fast finishes and will have Marcel Sieberg, Heinrich Haussler and Jan Tratnik as his sprint train.
"It's a good opportunity for me as a sprinter, as well as a sprint train to develop," the rider commented. "Last year I won a stage, and this year I feel super strong and I hope I can fight again for a stage win.
"I had good training after Tour Down Under, and Marcel, Heino and me are super motivated. Tour Down Under was our first race together, and we improved a lot, but we need to continue improving, it's not something that gets perfect after 2-3 races, so we'll keep improving, but also I'm confident we'll do a great job as a team together."
Nibali will have the support of Damiano Caruso in his GC aspirations. "We are going to Tour of UAE with a good team," said Bahrain-Merida's Sports Director Gorazd Stangelj. "Vincenzo Nibali will be our leader, while Phil Bauhaus will be our sprinter and both will have plenty of support.
"The first stage is TTT and it will be the first time for us to ride together so we will see what we could improve for the next important races. This first stage is really important for the GC ranking, so we hope we can set a good result. Good team spirit and achieving good results are definitely the main objectives of the team at this race."
Bahrain-Merida's roster for the UAE Tour (24th of February to 2nd of March):
Phil Bauhaus
Marcel Sieberg
Henrich Haussler
Vincenzo Nibali
Rohan Dennis
Damiano Caruso
Jan Tratnik
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