@Tamijo Thanks! @VoetsT, @Croatia14 Glad you like the team so far
Mikel Landa
Celebrating his biggest win, a 2015 Giro stage in Aprica, which was his 2nd win in a row in that Giro
Mikel Landa is free! The Basque rider has joined our team for the next 3 seasons. It wasn't easy to buy-out his contract with Sky, but finally we were able to reach an agreement.
Mikel is clearly one of the best climbers in the world, but in his year with Sky, he barely could prove it. He won the former-know Giro del Trentino (now Tour of the Alps) before having to abandon Giro d'Italia due to sickness. Then he acted as a domestique for Chris Froome in Tour de France.
He is most known by his perfomance in 2015 Giro d'Italia, where he won 2 stages in a row (Madonna di Campiglio and Aprica, after climbing Mortirolo) and finished in third place, just beated by Alberto Contador and his team-mate Fabio Aru.
We think he is capable of winning a Grand Tour this season, so he will have two chances to do it. Mikel will be the team leader in both Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España.
His entire season is focused on this two GT, so we don't expect him to do a great perfomance in any other races in the first part of the season.
His objetives for this season are very simple:
- Win his first Grand Tour
We are able to tell which will be his full calendar this season
Celebrating the first of his nine stage wins in Tour de France, in the first stage of 2013 edition, also taking yellow jersey
And the last rider to join our team is Marcel Kittel. The German sprinter is often known as the best sprinter in the world, although two last season were rather disappointing. Marcel has won stages in all 3 GT, with 9 stages in Tour (4x 13', 4x 14', 1x 16', 4 in Giro (2x 14', 2x 16' and 1 in Vuelta (2011).
With Fernando Gaviria gaining ground on the main sprinter role in Quick Step, Marcel decided to join our team for the next 3 seasons. According to sources, Kittel will be the sixth highest-paid rider in the world, behind Nibali, Sagan, Van Avermaet, Froome and Quintana.
The main objetive for Marcel this season will be Tour de France, where we will try to win as much stages as possible, as it seems to be like 6-8 stages favorable to him.
Also Green Jersey could be in sight in Marcel can win several stages.
Apart from TdF, Kittel will make his debut in Milano-Sanremo. He doesn't expect to fight for the win, but he wants to see if in the future he can win the race.
His objetives for the season:
- Win at least 3 stages in Tour de France
- Win the Green Jersey in Tour de France
- Win at least 10 times during the season
As with Mikel Landa, we also can reveal Marcel's full calendar for the season. At first sight, it might seem that we will race very few days, less than 60 i'm not wrong
First race for our team, in Australian roads with the Australian Road Championship.
Our only rider in the race is Heinrich Haussler, who will try to win by second time in three years this race, and the right to wear the Australian jersey. Main favourite is Michael Matthews, but he only has one team-mate today, so unless Orica wants to control the race for Gerrans or Ewan, a breakaway win might be very likely.
As expected, Orica was the only one to chase a 7-men breakaway, with no big names, with a little help from Hamilton, Matthews’ team-mate. In the penultime climb, the escapees were caught in the exact moment that Haussler was dropped from the group. He is not in good shape in this moment of the season and neither he was having a good day
He was able to rejoin the leading group in the descent. He sticked to Matthews’ wheel and despite a good attack of Richie Porte, Haussler was able to keep his place in the group. In the moment of the sprint, nothing stopped Michael Matthews from winning his first Australian Championship.
Thanks to sprint of Matthews’ wheel, Haussler was able to finish in second place. An unexpected result when he was dropped from the group with 20 km to the end
First World Tour race of the season in Australia, with Tour Down Under. No sponsor objetive, but that doesn’t mean that we are here just by obligation.
Phil Bauhaus is here to win a sprint, while Valerio Conti will try to sneak into the top10 of the race. Bauhaus’ main rivals in the sprint will be Fernando Gaviria, Arnaud Demare and Giacomo Nizzolo.
Big riders like Chris Froome, Dan Martin, Michal Kwiatkowski, Philippe Gilbert, four times TDU winner Simon Gerrans, Diego Ulissi, Ion Izagirre, Tony Gallopin, Oliver Naesen and Julian Alaphilippe will be starting their seasons here.
Our squad is the following one. Also this seven will ride Cadel Evans Race, a week later, and Herald Sun Tour, so they will have lot of time to discover Australian roads
Yes, but i'm happy with the result given that his shape was not good at all, and he had a -2 on daily form. Still wondering how he was able to stay on Matthews' wheel on the final climb
The first stage will end in Lyndoch, in an almost sured sprint finish. A breakaway of 8 riders was in front of the bunch during the stage. It looked a boring day until a crash happened inside the last 30 km, involving 3-times Tour de France winner Chris Froome and some of his team-mates
Stephen Cummings was forced to abandon due that crash. Despite Cannondale’s effort (they had 6 out 7 member of their team in Froome’s group) they would never see the main group again.
Incredibly, despite several teams efforts, the breakaway would go onto winning the stage. The lucky man was Michael Hepburn (Orica-Scott), who won ahead of Jos van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo)
Phil Bauhaus could finish in seventh place, but he will wear the U25 jersey in the following as the leader of that classification. Froome’s group, with included Bettiol, Kwiatkowski, Ulissi, Keukeleire and Roas, lost around 2 minutes, putting them out of GC contention
Michael Matthews
Jos van Emden 
Sam Bennett
Adam Blythe
Arnaud Démare
Bernhard Eisel
