Two Giro titles, one Vuelta, three Tour stage wins, and fourth overall at the 2025 Tour … How does UAE Team L’IMAD work with that?
UAE Team L’IMAD
Every team comes to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift with the best roster they have to offer. For some, like FDJ United-Suez, that means one leader (Demi Vollering) and a team of its strongest support riders. For others, it means sending every rider they have that has even the slightest chance of making it onto the podium. UAE Team L’IMAD is the latter.
At first glance, to say that the team assembled by UAE Team L’IMAD is stacked would be one heck of an understatement. Among them, they’ve got two ‘Grand Tours’, three Tour de France stage wins, a top 5 overall in last year’s edition, and a lot of ambition. It’s a roster that should strike fear in the hearts of competitors, but will they?
The team that won last year’s Giro d’Italia with Elisa Longo Borghini, a team that rode with one heart and one mind, is far from the squad that lined up in front of a room of journalists the Thursday before the Tour. Sullen and quiet, it’s possible the riders were just hungry, but it’s also hard not to read into the sour expressions on nearly every face when the squad was asked about leadership, a question that hung over the entire press conference.
“That is our secret weapon and it will remain secret until the race unfolds,” Brodie Chapman said when asked who had what role at the Tour, delivering what is clearly the official party line. “If we tell you, everyone is going to listen. I could lie to you, but I wouldn’t do that.”
It’s an age-old problem a lot of teams run into when they start to collect winners. The delicate game of finding riders strong enough to win, but who are willing to sacrifice their shot at victory if their teammate is better suited. Luckily, they have one rider who will always do this.
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