'We can't rule it out' - Narvaez in Guangxi as UAE chase 100 wins in a season

Jhonatan Narváez won the opening WorldTour race of the season at the Tour Down Under in January, and the way the year has been going for his team, he might well bookend the campaign with another victory at the Tour of Guangxi this week.

The Ecuadorian champion was a late addition to the published start list in China, but nothing, it seems, has been left to chance in this season of seasons for UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Narváez had been earmarked for the trip to Guangxi since early September, with his team realising that his talents were well tailored to the uphill finale in Nongla on stage 5.

“We took the decision quite late with the team, but it was already planned before the Tour of Luxembourg that I’d come here to China,” Narváez told Domestique ahead of stage 1 in Fangchenggang.

“I trained well in Ecuador, so I’ve prepared well. It was a long trip, but we’re here now, and it’s a WorldTour event, and it’s a nice race that I like. We’ll try to fight for the win. There are some strong rivals, obviously, but let’s hope there’ll be no crashes or anything and then we can all fight it out for the GC on the hard stage.”

Since mid-summer, it seemed inevitable that UAE Team Emirates-XRG would break HTC’s 2009 record haul of 85 wins in a season. By the time they broke that milestone last month, thoughts had already turned to the seemingly impossible feat of clocking up 100 wins in a campaign.

Adam Yates’ victory in Trofeo Tessile & Moda - Valdengo Oropa brought their running tally to 94 victories, and Narváez’s presence in China is an indication that UAE’s ambition for the year is not quite sated. With races in Italy and China this week, the century is still mathematically possible, though not entirely probable. 

“I think with the calendar that’s left, it’s going to be a bit difficult,” Narváez said. “But who knows? We can’t rule it out, and it’s the hope of the team. Well, I wouldn’t even say it’s the hope of the team, but it certainly would be nice to finish the year with 100 wins for the season. It would be historical, but let’s see.”

While UAE manager Mauro Gianetti had carefully downplayed the prospect of winning 100 races in a year over the summer, his colleague Joxean Matxin Fernandez has appeared more openly ambitious about the idea as the year drew on.

“It’s not something that we planned, it’s simply that the team selects races that suit the riders, they divide up the calendar very well,” Narváez said. “The team has done things well from the start of the year for the riders, and in the end, these results have come out of that.”

Narváez is coming to the end of his first campaign with UAE Team Emirates-XRG, having joined from Ineos last winter. He got off to a winning start with victory at the Tour Down Under, and he was also part of Tadej Pogacar’s guard at the Tour de France in July, providing the supersonic lead-out for his race-defining victory at Hautacam.

“It’s been very good,” Narváez said. “It’s been a season full of sacrifices too, but the team was always close to me and supporting me and helping me with my performance.”

When Narváez joined Ineos in 2020, the team was considered the standard for all others to match. While Narváez’s own star rose steadily during his five-year tenure, the team was gradually superseded by UAE. 

“The difference is that one team has one ideology, and the other has another one,” Narváez said, though he was reluctant to expand on the variations in philosophy. “I’d prefer not to enter into the details.

“I think there are differences between them, but essentially, both teams work hard and do the best they can to obtain results. They’re both working to win.” 

UAE, in any case, have achieved the remarkable alchemy of keeping such a star-studded roster pulling more or less in the same direction across the season. Not even Juan Ayuso’s very public divorce with the team on the Vuelta a España could halt their momentum, as they notched up seven stage victories across the race, including two from the Spaniard himself.

“It’s not always easy, but Matxin always tries to keep the riders organised and give them their opportunities in certain races and then in other races, he has them working for the team,” Narváez said. “I think the management of this team understand where to send the riders to race, so that they’re happy and have their opportunities.”