Sagan can count on the support of Damiano Caruso, Marco Marcato, Ted King, Daniele Ratto, Maciej Bodnar, Fabio Sabatini and his brother Juraj Sagan. Sabatini will be back in action after a five-month rehabilitation period following his crash at the US Pro Cycling Challenge.
Sagan made his season debut at the recent Tour de San Luis in Argentina but was beaten by Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) in the uphill sprint that decided the final stage. He has set Milan-San Remo as hi first major goal of the 2014 season. He will also ride Paris-Roubaix.
He will face serious sprint competition on the flat stages from Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) and Thor Hushovd (BMC) but is perfectly suited to the hillier third stage to Hatta.
"The Tour de San Luis was a positive starting point. Each day I felt more and more comfortable, and that's the most important result in the beginning of the season," said Sagan in a press release from the Cannondale team.
"The Dubai Tour will be exciting and the high level of the competition will be a big push to improve my performance. I have strong teammates around me; that's all I need to do well."
Dario Mariuzzo will be the Cannondale directeur sportif for the race. Other squads will then go on to ride the Tour of Qatar and the Tour of Oman. Sagan is expected to miss Qatar but will return to the Middle East for the hillier Tour of Oman.
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"Dubai Tour is an important race, and we expect the entire team to perform well," Mariuzzo said. "Sagan will be our frontrunner and he will have a number of opportunities to garner top results. But first and foremost, I want to see a united and motivated team."
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
