Team Jayco AlUla head into the third and final Grand Tour of the season, La Vuelta a España, with a mixed bag of options and a squad built from climbers and opportunists with the goal of challenging for stage wins.
2024 Team Jayco AlUla – La Vuelta line-up:
Alessandro De Marchi (ITA) – 6th appearance
Waley Hagos Berhe (ETH) – Debut appearance
Eddie Dunbar (IRL) – 2nd appearance
Felix Engelhardt (GER) – 2nd appearance
Chris Harper (AUS) – 2nd appearance
Mauro Schmid (SUI) – Debut appearance
Callum Scotson (AUS) – 4th appearance
Filippo Zana (ITA) – 2nd appearance
The Mountains are calling
The Vuelta, as always, is filled with hard mountainous stages with the team recruiting three talented climbers in the shape of Irishman Eddie Dunbar, Italian Filippo Zana and Australian Chris Harper ready to take their opportunities.
Zana showed great form and resilience at the Giro d’Italia earlier this year and is looking for another Grand Tour stage win to add to his palmarés, while Dunbar lines-up with fire in his belly after being forced to withdraw from the Giro d’Italia due to a crash. Harper returns to racing, hoping to build throughout the event after suffering and being forced to withdraw from the Tour de France due to Covid.
Filippo Zana: “I am looking forward to the Vuelta very much. After the Giro I had two months of good training and I am feeling in good shape ahead of the race. It will only be my second time at the Vuelta and I would love to try and take a stage victory.
The team we have has many climbers and riders to go for results from the breakaway. Aggressive racing will suit us well. It will be very hard, there’s a lot of good riders but we will fight everyday and try to make the most out of this opportunity.”
Ready for anything
Like every Grand Tour with 21 days of racing there are plenty of opportunities to be taken. Experienced veteran Alessandro De Marchi will be lining up for this sixth La Vuelta appearance and with no fear of putting it all on the line in pursuit of victory, the Italian will be one to watch in the day’s breakaways.
Alongside him Australian rider Callum Scotson is set to make this fourth appearance at the race and will be an important support rider for the climbers into the mountains, while 23-year-old German, Felix Engelhardt returns to the event with confidence in his form after an impressive stage win at the Tour of Slovakia in June.
First time for everything
Ready to make his Vuelta a España debut will be recently crowned Swiss champion Mauro Schmid, whose form has been on an upward trajectory this second half of the season after enjoying an overall victory at the Tour of Slovakia. The 24-year-old is looking to taste success in Spain, bringing an aggressive approach to racing with him.
The eighth and final rider to complete the Team Jayco AlUla line-up will be the rider from Ethiopia Waley Hagos Berhe, bringing raw climing talent to the roads of Spain. The young 22-year-old hoping to test himself when the road heads north against the world’s best.
Pieter Weening – Sport Director “We start the Vuelta with a squad built from aggressive style riders that can go into breakaways and the type of riders that can still finish it off after a day in the break. So, our main objective is going after stage wins at this year’s race. It is a mixed team with a lot of climbers but also powerful riders like Schmid and a faster guy with Engelhardt.
We start the race with an individual time trial and then already on stage four there is a mountain top finish. Then from stage six onwards there are plenty of opportunities, the types of stages where we can take the race on and try for stage wins.”
The 2024 edition of the Spanish tour will begin in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, 17th August with a race against the clock and conclude in the traditional finish location of downtown Madrid on Sunday, 8th September.
