Michel Ries: "A great opportunity”
Michel Ries, 23 years old and a young climber from Luxembourg, has joined the Arkéa-Samsic team for the next two seasons.
Michel Ries
“It is with great pleasure that I am joining the Arkéa-Samsic project led by its General Manager, Emmanuel Hubert. This is a great opportunity for me, and it gives me great motivation. Arkéa-Samsic is a team with a strong family spirit, which is what I was looking for. I like French cycling and the race calendar in your country suits me too. Your nation also has the culture of our sport. I am a rider who is more of a climber. I have spent the last two seasons with a World-Tour team, which has given me experience and also the opportunity to compete in the biggest races on the international calendar, including a Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España. My objective next year will be to help the Arkéa-Samsic team as much as possible, to accompany my leaders in the mountains: Nairo Quintana and Warren Barguil, to help them to perform alongside them in the big races. And when I have opportunities as an individual, I should take them. The most important thing for all of us will be to win races. Warren and Nairo have won big races, and I think I can learn from them. It will be a great source of motivation for me to work for riders of their calibre.
“We were looking for a young climber who could accompany and help our leaders, Michel Ries fits this profile. He is 23 years old and comes from the World-Tour, having ridden for Trek-Segafredo for two seasons, which allowed him to compete in some of the major races on the international calendar. Michel also knows how to show himself when he has an individual field, as shown by his 7th place in the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge this year. I also didn’t forget his performance in the Tour de l’Avenir 2018, and his second place on the penultimate stage, the day before the finish of the race behind Fernando Barcelo, but in front of Tadej Pogacar, yellow jersey of the race. The following year on this same event, he finished again twice second of the stages, including once at the top of the col de la Loze, and finished 7th in the general classification of this event considered as the antechamber for the young riders of the Tour de France”.