Eddie Dunbar’s move to a new squad will present the Irish climber with an unprecedented opportunity to chase Grand Tour success. As the 2023 season beckons, his team outlines to Shane Stokes what it will do to maximise Dunbar’s chances in the months ahead, focusing on these five key areas (Photo: Emanuela Sartorio)
Named in advance by his team as the leader for the Giro d’Italia, Team Jayco AlUla head directeur sportif Matt White has provided specifics to Sticky Bottle about how the squad will seek to transform Eddie Dunbar into a big Grand Tour contender.
Dunbar is moving to the squad after four seasons with the Ineos Grenadiers/Team Sky setup and will, finally, get the backing he needs to make a major tilt at a three week race.
Advertisement
The Corkman has only ridden one Grand Tour thus far, namely the 2019 Giro d’Italia. The need to make up for lost time is one of the reasons why he moved to the Australian team, with his non-selection for the 2022 edition proving the final straw in terms of his relationship with Ineos Grenadiers.
However while he had a breakthrough 2022 season, landing his first professional victories in winning the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali and Tour de Hongarie stage races, some have raised questions about his ability to be a Grand Tour team leader.
White admits that this potential is yet to be proven, but believes that Dunbar fully deserves the chance to try.
“He has shown this year that he can win stage races in Europe. He won two this year,” White said in a long interview with this site. “But what we don’t know, and what we want to give him the opportunity to see, is how he can perform on the Grand Tour front. “Not only is he going to get a chance to ride Grand Tours with us regularly, he is going to get a chance to lead our team.”
Asked specifically by Sticky Bottle if Dunbar would be targeting the general classification of the Giro d’Italia, White confirmed that will be the case. “Look, we haven’t announced anything, but that is the plan at the moment moving forward,” he said. And there may well be another three week race on the horizon too, one where he could potentially share leadership with the team’s other GC rider, Simon Yates.
“Our picture for him in the end is that he will probably ride the Vuelta as well,” White revealed. “So it would be a good opportunity for him to do two Grand Tours next season [2023]. That is what we have him locked in for in our planning at the moment.”
Riding one or more Grand Tours a season is often regarded within cycling as a key way to build strength, particularly for those in the first half of their career. Dunbar has been lacking in this regard, with his sole Grand Tour participation happening more than three and a half years ago.
The 2019 Giro saw him take third on a stage and finish 22nd overall. Since then various factors have seen him miss out on other three week races, with injury, illness and non-selection amongst the reasons.
2023 will be all go, however, and White has laid out the elements he hopes will see Dunbar have a Grand Tour breakthrough.
1 Clarity in racing and training
“I think that the number one thing is he has a fixed race plan from now to the Giro,” White explained. “This is locked in, whereas with Ineos he was getting called up with days’ notice for bike races. There was a lot of last minute stuff, and that just doesn’t happen with us. Okay, sometimes all teams have to make those calls, but that certainly doesn’t happen for our leaders.”
Aside from being a clear show of faith, this will give Dunbar far greater certainty about his racing and training, and also in relation to his position within the team.
“Our leaders go into the winter knowing what they’re preparing for, and he’s one of those guys,” White continued. “So he’s got a fixed program. He can go away and prepare over the month of November, December, January, knowing where he’s starting his season, knowing what his plan is for the first race of the year, knowing where his first peaks are. He has numerous stage races between Valencia and the Giro where he will just be building his condition, knowing that his first big peak of the year will be will be at the Giro.”
Dunbar did a training camp with the team in December and will do another in January. After that his programme will see him ride Valencia, UAE, Tirreno and Pays Basque, with altitude camps also helping him prior to lining out in the Giro on May 6th.
White believes that this certainty should lead to a higher performance level as a result. “I think for Eddie, he’s a lot more relaxed knowing what he’s racing and what he’s preparing for. Most athletes don’t like surprises [laughs]. Next year he won’t be getting rung up and told to bop off to a WorldTour race in the last 48 hours before it starts.”
2 Working on a weaker point
The second factor White sees as key is being able to do a lot of work on one of Dunbar’s weaker areas. He’s a sub-60 kilo rider who is strong uphill but gives up time to bigger riders on the flat.
“Obviously, time trialing is not his forte,” he said. “There’s a lot of time trial kilometres at the Giro, three very different time trials, so that’s something he’s going to have to work on continuously between now and May. That’s a process…we will be getting him in to have a look at his position aerodynamically, and then just spending a lot of time working on his time trial.
Related News
“He hasn’t had [this], Ineos didn’t put a lot of effort into [time trialling] with him, around his position, around wind tunnel stuff, around that sort of technology. But we are doing that.”
3 Clear, consistent backing from designated riders
Dunbar’s time with Ineos Grenadiers saw him most often riding for others, such as when he helped Richard Carapaz to win the 2021 Tour de Suisse, or when he backed Pavel Sivakov in the 2019 Giro d’Italia. His role necessitated him fitting in around the requirements of others, while with Jayco AlUla, he will be the focal point in his key races.
“I have tried to put some of the key guys who will be around him for the Giro around him at other times before we get there,” White said.
“When you have a leader, every leader has a different style…for example, how they like to ride into climbs, how they like to handle certain moments. I think the guys who are going to be working for him need to work out how he likes to arrive into the climbs, how he likes to arrive into certain key moments.”
There will be a necessary learning process as a result. “It’s a two way adaptation,” he continues. “He has to express himself to his teammates and his teammates have to listen and adapt to how Eddie likes to ride. And Eddie’s probably going to ride a little bit different to Simon [Yates], which is fine.
“Because all these teammates are new, he needs to work out the way that he likes to communicate as a leader to these guys. I’ve also brought in a couple of experienced guys…[Alessandro] De Marchi especially will be really helpful around round Eddie, because his big goal is the Giro as well, and he does have a lot of experience. And he’s a guy that will be around Eddie a couple of times before in the spring as well.”
4 Dedicated support of team staff
Just as Dunbar will benefit from consistent backing from set riders in 2023, he will enjoy the same support from staff members. White said that there will be a goal of familiarisation in the coming months, with the aim that Dunbar will arrive at his key target with everything fully in place.
“I’ve also deliberately put it so that the directors that will be guiding him at the Giro will have at least one or two races with him before he gets there. Some of them are doing nearly everything with him beforehand. So when we do all arrive at the Giro, the directors, the riders, there’s been a bit of cohesion, there’s been a bit of synergy there in the month prior.
“The idea is that we’re not rocking up to the Giro like ‘we’ve Eddie Dunbar as our leader for the Giro, I don’t know how he works!’ We will get there and the directors will know this is Eddie’s style, this is how we need to approach certain things. David McPartland and Pieter Weening will be doing multiple races with Eddie in the spring months.”
5 An unprecedented show of confidence
Dunbar has always been a rider of big ambitions, saying from an early age that he wanted to try to win the Tour de France. He’s now 26 year of age but has never been given the full, consistent and ongoing backing of a team. That will change from 2023 onwards, with Jayco AlUla throwing its weight fully behind him.
While playing second fiddle at Ineos Grenadiers will have been tough for his self confidence, he will enjoy the opposite with Jayco AlUla.
“Physically, he is he has a lot of talent,” White said. “Obviously anyone who’s winning bike races in Europe knows how to get the job done.
“He had some opportunities this year and obviously took them with both hands, winning two stage races. He’s taken then when he’s had a chance. Other times he just hasn’t had the chance, especially on the Grand Tour front, to show what his worth is.”
Breakthrough on the horizon?
Everything looks set to change for Dunbar in 2023 and beyond. Time will tell if he can deliver over three weeks, but he will look to seize the opportunity laid out before him and to elevate his career to a new level.
What’s encouraging is that White has been chasing Dunbar for a long time. His interest is not just based on what he achieved in 2022, but goes back much longer than that.
He revealed to Sticky Bottle that he already had his eyes on him for three or four seasons. “I tried to get him out of Ineos. It might have been after his first contract finished. He was sort of enjoying it there and was grateful that they’d taken him on and didn't want to change just for change’s sake.
“I said, ‘no worries, we will stay in touch with Gary [his agent Gary McQuaid – ed.].’ As things evolved there, he didn’t get a lot of opportunities there and was looking for a team where he could get those opportunities. And it worked out quite well with us.”
So does White believe Dunbar feels excited by it all?
“He does. He does,” he said. “It was obviously pretty frustrating for him to get called up last minute all the time and to be preparing for a goal that didn’t happen. Whereas now he knows we’ve got confidence in him.
“I think when you come to a team and a team sits down and has that confidence that you’re going to lead them in a Grand Tour, it’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?”
