"For me it was hard to find my place" - Former UAE Team Emirates rider on motivation to seek opportunities with another team

UAE Team Emirates have a seemingly bottomless pit of talent in their hands but as it often happens; sometimes less is more. The logical consequence of overload of talented leaders (on long contracts) leads to inevitable and rumours of promising riders looking into ways out of their contract are stacking up (such as Juan Ayuso rumours after the Tour de France). That's not quite the case for Finn Fisher-Black whose contract had run out at the end of 2024 as he seeks more chances with his new team Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe.

"I think it just gets very populated, they're fortunate to have so much talent. It was hard to show that you were good enough to be there sometimes because everyone's trying to do their best and everyone has their own ambitions," Fisher-Black told Cyclingnews and The Cycling Podcast at Red Bull's December training camp.

"Some of these guys, like Ayuso, Del Toro, these guys coming through now, they're absolute superstars and they're going to achieve great things, I'm sure. But when you're not on that level of trajectory, it's hard to break through into the into the sole leadership roles of that team. For me, it was hard to kind of find my place."

The 2024 was disappointing for Fisher-Black at times, in particular because of the limited opportunities to shine at biggest races for which he often wasn't even selected. "I was looking for some more opportunities and I missed out on a Grand Tour this year on UAE, so that was a big motive for me to realise that maybe it was time to leave. I want to find the most out of myself, and I think that's by doing the biggest races," explained Fisher-Black.

He recounts his first and last Grand Tour start where he even finished in second in one of the stages. "At the Vuelta in 2023 I kind of showed myself quite a bit, and that's where I started to feel like I was a bit more recognised in the World Tour by the public, but also just by my peers."