No Grand Tour hat-trick but "we have to be very happy with this Vuelta" insists UAE Team Emirates

After Tadej Pogacar's Giro d'Italia and Tour de France triumphs earlier in 2024, UAE Team Emirates were looking to match the feat of Visma in 2023 with a Grand Tour hat-trick at the Vuelta a Espana. Whilst that ultimately didn't transpire, the team remains happy with their efforts in Spain.

“All things considered we have to be very happy with this Vuelta," insists Marco Marcato, UAE Team Emirates sports director, in a post-Vuelta reflection on the team's official website. "We set-out to be active in the race every day and I think it was the right strategy for us. Unfortunately we lost our leader João Almeida at the beginning of the race but we adapted our plans and we can say it worked out well. We can be proud of our riders.”

One of those the team is surely most proud of, will be Marc Soler. A key factor in Jay Vine's King of the Mountains jersey victory, Soler was in almost every important breakaway, won a stage and was eventually rewarded for his continued efforts by receiving the super-combativity prize for the entire Grand Tour. “We have to leave this Vuelta happy,” said Soler in quotes collected by Velo. “It was a shame about João because we think he could have challenged for the win, but the team didn’t give up.”

“After João left the race, we changed our tactic,” Soler continues. “We still wanted to get a rider in the top-10, and I did what the team asked of me, to move the race, to attack, to try to win stages,” the Spaniard concludes, a feat the team certainly achieved over the course of the three weeks of racing in Soler's homeland.

“Two years ago, I was on cloud nine, two stage wins and in the mountain jersey with a comfortable lead, ready to come to Madrid, and then disaster struck on stage 18,” King of the Mountains winner Vine said of the race. “And now to finish that up is fantastic, especially after the year that I had. I feel like my season is just starting, so I’m looking forward to the rest of it.”

“It’s pretty incredible. The recovery that I’ve had is amazing,” Vine concluded. “At the time, we didn’t really know if I would be able to ride again, let alone compete. So to be able to be here with the jersey, it was like a dream. To actually be able to pull it off is amazing.”