Marcel Kittel bidding for Dubai Tour hat-trick on Team Katusha Alpecin debut

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  • Two-time defending champion Marcel Kittel has every reason to approach the Dubai Tour with the utmost confidence, having had so much success in the emirate in the past.

    But the German is keeping his expectations in check as he gets set to make his debut for his new team, Katusha Alpecin, having parted ways with Quick-Step Floors at the end of last season.

    The team swap carousel in the world of cycling never stops spinning and Kittel is not the only one to have found a new home base in 2018.

    Sat just two seats down from the powerful German sprinter at the Dubai Tour pre-event press conference on Monday at the Westin hotel was Italian rider Elia Viviani, who has taken Kittel’s spot at Quick-Step after terminating his contract with Team Sky, three years into his partnership with the British team.

    The lead-out riders who helped Kittel clinch a second consecutive trophy in Dubai last year will now be serving Viviani in his new quest for sprinting excellence.

    Kittel, a 14-time stage winner at the Tour de France, is ready to embark on a quest of his own, as he kicks off his season in the UAE on Tuesday looking to build on his previous strong results here, but with a different outfit.

    “It would be nice to get already a victory here,” Kittel told reporters on Monday. “But under the circumstances now, changing teams, being for the first time together here in the race, that’s something where I say ‘okay, let’s just see what happens, concentrate, be focused, we are well-prepared, we trained good and we are motivated and we want to try our best and see what it is worth at the end’.”

    Kittel, who has claimed a combined eight stage wins in Dubai in 2014, 2016 and 2017, says things have been going “very good” so far with his new team-mates. The 29-year-old has particularly enjoyed the fact that Katusha Alpecin include several German-speaking riders and joked that new British recruit Alex Dowsett has already picked up some words from the language.

    “It’s a little bit sad sometimes when you leave a team but it’s also a nice thing if you come into a new group of people. You’re also challenged again, you have maybe slightly different goals but you’re just going into the year with a different motivation,” explains Kittel.

    “And that’s what happened to me and I’m sure it happened to other riders that changed teams this year. We’ve had a very good winter, a very short one actually – at least it felt that way for me – and now we’re here in Dubai, we’re motivated to see where we stand as a group in the lead-out, on the sprint, and that’s the first test for us.”

    Is he tempted to think about pulling off a hat-trick in Dubai, Kittel says: “I’m not thinking about that. I like to take it step by step, day by day, stage by stage, for the Dubai Tour. Tomorrow is the start and I think we start with the most technical finish in the whole race. It’s a stress test for the team already.”

    Today’s opening Nakheel stage of the Dubai Tour is a 167km ride that culminates at the Atlantis hotel on Palm Jumeirah.

    Four of the five stages of the race favour the sprinters and Kittel will face stiff competition from the likes of Team Dimension Data’s Mark Cavendish – the 2015 Dubai Tour champion – Viviani, UAE Team Emirates’ Alexander Kristoff and Trek-Segafredo’s John Degenkolb.

    Viviani won the Nakheel stage twice, in 2015 and 2016, and admits it’s a tricky finish.

    “I think it’s a really nice finish tomorrow, I won it two times, and lost last year to Marcel and finished in the top-10. It’s not an easy sprint because when you come out of the tunnel you need to be already in a good position,” said Viviani, an Olympic gold medallist on the track in Rio 2016, and a Giro d’Italia stage winner.

    “And then when you go on the last straight it depends on where the wind is coming from – last year it came from the sea – and when you have the crosswind in the sprint you have to analyse which side is better for sure but also to be already in position. The wind can make the difference.”

    The Dubai Tour starts on Tuesday and concludes on Saturday, February 10 with the Stage 5 sprint finish at City Walk.

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