After a year that yielded just seven wins and saw their leaders underperform on nearly every front, changes were needed at Dimension Data. Step forward Rolf Aldag, who alongside Douglas Ryder, were the men with the plan to kickstart a struggling team that had fallen to the lower echelons of the WorldTour.
The challenges facing Aldag and the rest of the management at Dimension Data were huge. For one, they had endured a season in which their frontline of Mark Cavendish, Louis Meintjes, Steve Cummings and Edvald Boasson Hagen had failed to produce a single WorldTour win between them.
A drop in performance from their leaders only highlighted the lack of depth within the rest of the team, and without the two stage wins at the Vuelta a España, courtesy of Ben King, the team would have gone an entire season without tasting WorldTour success. Throw into the mix a lack of fit and experienced captains, riders calling out the team's equipment in public, a star sprinter out of contract, and a responsibility to support African talent, and Dimension Data’s task looked insurmountable.
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"Most of all we needed stability in our racing," Aldag told Cyclingnews during a series of conversations during the off-season that started in September and ran until late November.
"So last year we'd have maybe Edvald in a race, but the rest of the guys were a bit more random. We needed to get to a point where we had five or six stable guys. If you have some jokers, that's fine, but you need to be able to predict the results from your riders more."
At times, Dimension Data appeared to be racing with one hand tied behind their back in 2018. With Cavendish on the tarmac more than on the podium, Eisel out injured and Cummings pushed and pulled from race to race, the team was stretched too thinly. The first task was to solidify their core in the transfer market.
The balance between points and the development of African talent
Securing a future with Cavendish and Eisel
A new dawn in 2019
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/aldag-on-rebuilding-a-struggling-dimension-data
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