UAE Team Emirates added two more wins to their season tally on Saturday, as Juan Ayuso claimed his fourth win of the year in the Tour de Luxembourg stage four time trial and Filippo Baroncini took a solo win in his pro debut in the Super 8 Classic.
The two victories bring the team’s win tally for the season to an astounding 75, and Baroncini’s win brings the number of team riders with race wins to 19.
That’s right, almost two-thirds of the 30-man UAE Team Emirates team have tasted victory this season, matching the long-standing record set by Mapei-QuickStep in 2000.
Comprised of the most well-rounded roster of any current pro group, this team could get 22 wins from superstar leader Tadej Pogacar, a total that few full-pro teams have managed to reach so far this year.
Between his season-opening win at Strade Bianche and his recent triumph at the Montreal Grand Prix, the 26-year-old has bagged 12 stage wins, including at the Volta de Catalunya, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and across two Grand Tours.
Including the UAE, only 11 teams have reached this milestone, with other notable teams with fewer wins than Slovenia in 2024 including Ineos Grenadiers, Bahrain Victorious and Lotto Dostny.
Other riders who can be expected to join the team include departing riders Mark Hirsey (8 wins), Brandon McNulty (7 wins), Adam Yates (6 wins), and Ayuso (4 wins), who have increased the team’s number of wins.
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If 19 different race winners wasn’t enough, UAE Team Emirates has also won more races than any other team since 2009. Their 75 wins surpass the number of wins held by Quick-Step team in 2018 (73) and 2019 (70), but they still have a long way to go to match Columbia-HTC’s all-time record from 15 years ago.
At the time, sprint stars Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel, along with all-round rising star Edvald Boasson Hagen, led the US team to a massive 85 wins.
Of course, the UAE team does not have any star players, but that makes their current achievements even more impressive.
The team’s Colombian sprint pair, Juan Sebastián Molano and Alvaro Hodeg, are in fact among 11 riders yet to record a win this season, with the UAE’s only victories coming in the mountains, hills and time trials.
Joining Molano and Hodeg in the UAE Team Emirates selected squad who are yet to taste a win this season are Rafal Majka, Mikkel Bjorg, Igor Arrieta, Sjoerd Backes, Alessandro Covi, Vegard Stake Lengen, Ivo Oliveira, Rui Oliveira and Michael Vink.
Only time will tell if any of these riders will take the riders’ place with more wins than Mapei with 19, but with Pogacar due to spend the rest of the year racing in races such as the Road World Championships and Il Lombardia, it’s unlikely they’ll stop at 75 wins for the season.
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