Nils Politt and UAE Team Emirates-XRG gear up for the Deutschland Tour

UAE Team Emirates-XRG will soon head to Germany for the ADAC Cyclassics one-day race, followed by the five-day Lidl Deutschland Tour. Piloting the Emirati squad in both races will be the home favourite and one of the Tour de France’s standout performers, Nils Politt.

For the German rouleur, Sunday, 17 August will bring an eighth start in the ADAC Cyclassics in Hamburg, before he returns to the stage race he won in 2021. With two stage wins from the Lidl Deutschland Tour in his palmarès, Politt and his teammates will be looking forward to another crack at the unpredictable stage race between Wednesday, 20 August, and Sunday, 24 August.

First up will be the ADAC Cyclassics, standing at 206.9km in length, where Politt will be joined by Jan Christen, Isaac del Toro, Alessandro Covi, Brandon McNulty, Sebastián Molano and António Morgado.

The course suits a sprinter in the build of Molano, but both Christen and Del Toro arrive with recent one-day success for UAE Team Emirates-XRG. On his last one-day outing, Christen placed runner-up at the Clásica San Sebastián, with Del Toro the winner of the Circuito de Getxo before going on to claim the Vuelta a Burgos title. In Morgado, the Emirati squad also has a rider capable of racing on the front foot.

With that said, the ADAC Cyclassics is often decided in a bunch sprint, and as such, the organisers have looked to throw in a few more tests this time round.

The toughest point on the parcours will be the Waseberg climb, which stretches out for a little over a kilometre at an average gradient of 7%. Running alongside the Elbe River in Hamburg, the Waseberg pitches up above 15% in parts and will prove no easy task on the five occasions that the race mounts its assault.

The riders will crest the climb for one final time with only 12km to go in the day, offering an interesting launchpad for any opportunists.

Should the peloton remain largely intact, however, we can expect a bunch sprint in the city centre, where UAE Team Emirates-XRG has claimed third and fourth through Alexander Kristoff in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Staying in Germany, UAE Team Emirates-XRG will take on the Lidl Deutschland Tour between 20-24 August, with a prologue followed by four road stages. Guided by Sports Directors Andrej Hauptman and Simone Pedrazzini, the Emirati squad will line up as follows:
– Jan Christen (SUI)
– Rafał Majka (Pol)
– Brandon McNulty (USA)
– Jhonatan Narváez (Ecu)
– Nils Politt (Ger)
– Davide Stella (Ita) (Gen Z)

Jan Christen, Rafał Majka and Brandon McNulty will all arrive at the race fresh off the back of a successful Tour de Pologne, with McNulty taking the final stage win and overall victory. Christen rode a consistent week to take fourth overall, whilst Majka proved an invaluable help in his final appearance at his home race.

All three riders look well set, and will be joined by Gen Z talent Davide Stella, and two members of UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Tour de France-winning squad, Jhonatan Narváez and Nils Politt. For Narváez, the Lidl Deutschland Tour will mark his first return to racing after a spell of training back home in Ecuador.

As for Politt, the big German won this race back in 2021 and placed runner-up three years earlier, taking home a stage win from both editions. This will be his sixth start at the 2.Pro stage race, and the parcours looks wide open for an unpredictable race.

Politt: “We’re all set for this next block of racing. It’s a pleasure to be racing on home roads and I’m excited for it. German cycling is going through a good moment and events like this are important for the sport here.

“I had a good break after the Tour and am feeling motivated to get back racing. We have a very strong team, both for the stage wins and for the GC, so I think we can be competitive all week.”

Beginning in Essen, the 40th edition of the Lidl Deutschland Tour will open up with a 3.1km-long prologue, setting an initial pecking order in the general classification. Stage 1 will undoubtedly end with a bunch sprint, before stage 2 brings some more serious tests, packing 2,430m of climbing into 190km of racing.

It will be a day for the Classics specialists, with the terrain up and down all afternoon without any long, testing climbs. In fact, this year’s race has no mountains at all, making the battle for every second out on the road pivotal for the final general classification.

Stage 3 will be the hardest day of the race, with 2,858m of climbing to be tackled between Neheim and Kassel, before a relatively easy parcours on stage 4 will lend itself to one final sprint to end the week. Arriving to Madgeburg after five days of racing, the winner of the Lidl Deutschland Tour will be crowned after stage 4 on Sunday, 24 August.