"The excellent results we achieved twelve months ago in our first participation to the Australian races tasted like more. Remembering last year's great season start, we composed a solid and balanced line up for these 2024 opening races back in October. With Lilian Calmejane, Dion Smith and Georg Zimmermann we have several cards to play for the general classification and the difficult finals. Biniam Girmay and Madis Mihkels are our leaders for the sprint, the courses suit them very well. These men can rely on two exemplary teammates on all terrains: Tom Paquot and Simone Petilli. Our plan is to offer these seven riders a long training block after these races, on altitude for some of them, in order to prepare well for the classics on European soil." "For their preparation, the majority of our selection finished their 2023 road season relatively early. All followed a specific training programme during our team training camp in December, including individual training sessions behind the scooter for example. Our team travelled to Adelaide earlier than most of the other teams, in order to have enough time for acclimatisation, acquiring training rhythm and course recons. I expect this transition to go smoothly, especially for Biniam Girmay and Dion Smith who have been preparing these races in their home country the past three weeks. Dion comes from New-Zealand and benefits from a short trip. Biniam's advantage is the similar weather circumstances in Eritrea compared to what we can expect in Australia. I'm really looking forward to this first appointment with a group of ambitious riders, while we unite the rest of the team in Spain to finalise our preparation for the first races on European soil."
