Hello everyone. After an up-and-down year, we're headed back to the PCT after very narrowly missing out on the final safe position in the ProTour. There are many positive things that I am proud to have accomplished during the year, most notably being our dominance in the TTT arena (winning 4 of the TTT's on the ProTour calendar), taking a Tour de France stage win (thank you Alexandr Braico!), and taking a podium in the Giro d'Italia with our long-time leader Andrei Amador. However, we generally under-performed in the general classification throughout the year (looking at you, Yuri Trofimov...) and ended up relegating.
Farewells
With renewals finished and the transfer season underway, I'd like to bid farewell to the following riders. Mirco Saggiorato is a rider who worked tirelessly as a mountain domestique for Amador for many years. This year he won a stage of Paris Nice and nearly won the KoM jersey, and unfortunately we were not able to pay him the salary he deserves based on his results. Alexandr Braico is another rider who helped the team for a couple years, and I'm thankful for him this year giving us some of our highlights of the season (stage wins in the Tour de France and the Tour of Northern Europe!). He will be missed, but once again we couldn't afford him with the downsize in our budget. It was an absolute privilege to have cycling legend Yuri Trofimov ride in our colors this year. Unfortunately, he did not quite live up to his reputation (or salary!) and we mutually decided to go our separate ways this offseason. Also leaving are long time domestiques Rafaa Chtioui and Danilo Wyss. Both were great helpers that I can't thank enough and I wish them the best of luck going forward.
Transfers
With all that said, we are looking to make some changes this coming transfer season. As always, we will seek out Swiss riders to maintain our core, and we will look to build support for some of our young riders who we expect to step into leadership roles in the future. In terms of trades, our Swiss riders are generally not available (the exception being Dylan Page) but I am listening to offers for others. There will be a thread in the Adverts section with more details.
Thank you for reading, and I will see you all in transfers market!
I'd like to announce our updated jersey for 2019! Sponsors are unchanged but there are new national champion kits. Thank you so much the_hoyle for once again setting us up with such beautiful jerseys, I am thrilled again with your work this time around.
With the start of the season quickly approaching, I'd like to present the goals and squad for Team UBS in 2019. There have been a lot of changes in the team during the offseason, but we do retain the same core leadership for this year.
Our main focus was building a supporting team for our young cobbles leader, Lukas Spengler. In order to do this, we made a large trade with our long-term Swiss partners at Sauber. The trade involved sending Dylan Page to Sauber in exchange for Tom Bohli and Arnaud Grand. I think this will be massive for us going forward and it will be the first year that we will have ever had an actually competitive classics lineup.
We also signed several supporting free agents. Kevin Foquet is another cobbles domestique who will work for Spengler. Jorge Abreu is an all-rounder who will bolster our TTT lineup, and hopefully get some results from breakaways. Further TTT support will come from new signing Daniil Fominykh, who is the dual champion of Kazakhstan. Last but not least is Artur Grigrian, a veteran climber who was added to support Amador and Schelling in the mountains.
Here is the complete line-up for 2019:
In terms of goals for the coming season, our main priority is to get back to the ProTour. I think we are in a good position to achieve this, but we may be fighting for the lesser promotion spots. Aside from that, our race goals are listed below:
Tour de Romandie
Win
Vuelta a Colombia
Top 5
Tour du Maroc
Top 10
Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt
Top 5
PCT Team Standings
Top 10
Andrei Amador will be our main leader and he will be in attendance at each of the races listed above. Thanks for reading!
Congrats on your promotion, mate! Great to see Swiss cycling back in the top league - really important for the development of our rising stars! Wish you all the best for the upcoming offseason including renewals and transfers
Vuelta a Colombia
Tour du Maroc
Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt
