This is a story of suspensory points, whose beginning is situated in the days when a young Slovenian was leading one of the greatest coups in the recent history of cycling. With Tadej Pogačar, recently proclaimed winner of the Tour de France, Gobik entered the scene to dress the big stars of UAE Team Emirates, for some time now, one of the best teams in the world.
Two years later, the Yecla-based company can boast of having dressed more than 50 riders, of more than ten nationalities, including stars such as Rui Costa, Alexander Kristoff, Matteo Trentin, Marc Hirschi, Joao Almeida, Rafal Majka, Brandon McNulty, Diego Ulissi, Fernando Gaviria, Marc Soler, Davide Formolo, Jan Polanc and Juan Ayuso, the new pearl of Spanish cycling.
In this time, Gobik he has been present at the top of the best calendar cycling's best cycling calendar, and has been part of unique feats and unrepeatable photos, stepping no less than 80 times on the top step of the podium.
The second Tour and the monuments of Pogačar.
In 2021, Gobik already dressed from the first days of the year, the 32 UAE Team Emirates cyclists, coming from half the world. The first success was not long in coming: Tadej Pogačar made the predictions good by opening the locker in Jabel Hafeet, one of the most emblematic summits of the UAE Tour.
It was a harbinger of things to come. The smiling Slovenian cyclist opened in the home race a cycle of victories that seemed to have no end, both in quality and quantity: Tirreno-Adriatico, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Tour of Slovenia and... the Tour de France.
Less than one year after the great comeback, Pogačar renewed the crown in the best race in the world, signing three stages, three stages, some of them iconic for GobikThe Col de Portet, at the top of the Pyrenees, where photographers from all over the world immortalized the mark in the “second skin” of the Slovenian phenomenon crossing the finish line.
In 2021 UAE Team Emirates achieved up to 32 victories.including Joe Dombrowski's stage win in a very demanding Giro and Rafal Majka's great ride in the Sierra de Avila in the Vuelta a España. Pogačar capped a magical season with the Giro di Lombardia, his second monument of the year.
2022, another campaign to mark
While it is true that in the first sporting balance of the year that is ending, many will miss the repetition of Pogačar at the top of the Tour de France, it is no less true that the campaign of the great Slovenian star and his teammates in UAE Team Emirates has been excellent in quality and quantity.
The 34 riders that UAE Team Emirates had in dance during this 2022 gave up to 48 victories in one of the most impressive collective performances of the World Tour. The count was opened in February by Brandon McNulty in Mallorca and closed by Marc Hirschi, in October, on the occasion of the Veneto Classic.
In between, the jerseys UAE Team Emirates riders have gone all out for every race in which the team has taken part. Pogačar's balance sheet includes three stages in the Tour de France. and its stellar role in the great passages of an edition to remember, for the emotion and alternatives offered. Pogačar did not stop there, he reedited the triumphs in UAE Tour and Tirreno, he added the Strade Bianche and Montreal and at the end of the year he kept the Lombardy crown.
The block was also distinguished by a great variety of victories, some of which were highly symbolic, such as that of Alessandro Covi on the summit of the Marmolada, on the penultimate day of the Giro, hours after losing Joao Almeida in the fight for the podium of the Corsa Rosa.
The Vuelta a España was a great success for the team, which managed to bring the very young Juan Ayuso to the podium in Madrid.minutes after Sebastián Molano achieved the iconic victory in the capital. Before, that's why, Marc Solerhad already opened the account in a thrilling finale in Bilbao.
The constant presence of the UAE Team Emirates colors at the front of all the races in which it competed was one of the key features of the second and final campaign of the UAE Team Emirates. Gobik wearing one of the best teams in the world.
After two years, many victories, more emotions, and extreme situations, Gobik and the team go their separate ways, with the certainty that the story has been worthwhile.
