Transformation, metamorphosis. The Bahrain team that has been training since Monday on the Croatian island of Hvar has changed the course dramatically to keep its name in the first category of cycling. In these new coordinates Vincenzo Nibali no longer appears, who goes for the 35 years, the cornerstone of the previous project, born in 2017. Nor are some of his bodyguards retired or without equipment ( Valerio Agnoli , Domenico Pozzovivo ), nor the rebel who left in the Tour on its own (the world time trial champion Rohan Dennis ), nor a Slovenian caught in the Aderlass anti-doping operation ( Kristjan Koren ) - like his compatriot and sports director Borut Bozic - nor three other minor cyclists.

The emirate decided to compact his WorldTour cycling team and the McLaren Formula 1 team, of which he is a major shareholder. With that new British feature, technological and competitive by flag he entered the house of successes, Sky / Ineos, and hired a new CEO. Rod Ellinworth , head of performance in the successful wave of Chris Froome and his epigons, takes over Bahrain-McLaren 2020.

The first thing he undertook was the signing of a new leader for the big laps and then surrounded by contrasting runners of his confidence: Mikel Landa , former Sky, is the 'boss'. And with him, his compadre Pello Bilbao (although he swiped in the last corner a stage victory in the last Giro d'Italia), Rafa Valls and another former pupil in the English team, the Dutch Wout Poels .

Now the vertex is occupied by the Spanish Mikel Landa, who has just turned 30 and those victories and the final podium of the 2015 Giro, unexpected, promising ... and miserable for his merits, because if his team had played well the letters, the Alavés could have dealt a blow to the Gunman Alberto Contador and scored that race. Today, Landa is a runner of 'cassis', spectacular in the mountains when he is in shape, with an undesirable regularity in the counters and condemned for falls or incidents to impossible comebacks.

Landa's plan for the Tour

Ellinworth hopes to apply the Sky method to wrap him in the Tour de France, which for the first time becomes monothem in Landa's career. With the anticipation of an edition of the French round that benefits you because the few kilometers of chrono run the penultimate day and on the rise . Alavés sees more opportunities on paper to dominate the main calendar event. With a unique and undisputed leadership (for the moment) in the team, you should not trip over the usual stones and potholes in the way of your preparation.

Bahrain-McLaren has a Spanish room, Iván García Cortina . He was sportively weaned in the inaugural project of the emirate, focused on what motivates him, the classic paves, and it can already be said that his physique is fully modeled. This year he premiered honors: a stage of the Tour of California. In the big rounds, the leadership in the sprints has been shared with the Italian Sonny Colbrelli , but Ellinworth has signed Mark Cavendish at the last minute, which defoliated the margarita of retirement. The sprinter of the Isle of Man is hardly going to be lowered to launch neither the Italian nor the Asturian. It is one of the few missing in the concentration of Hvar, because on Thursday he will look for an Olympic place in Madison for the United Kingdom.

The 11 signings of the new Emirati team (Bilbao, Buitrago, Capecchi, Cavendish, Davies, Haller, Inkelaar, Landa, Poels, Valls and Wright) will release a team with John Allert and Milan Erzen (the link that united the team with Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa ) danced the face along with the former manager Brent Copeland , and a large squad of sports directors, to which are physios, doctors, nutritionists, mechanics.

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