Ilnur Zakarin, who will compete in his first race of the 2020 season and first race since joining the CCC team at the UAE Tour in Dubai on Sunday, is ready to be "aggressive" on the two climbs of stage 3 and stage 5, Jebel Hafeet, where overall victory is up for grabs in the seven-day race He said he is ready to be "aggressive.

The 30-year-old last pedaled in anger when he finished 53rd overall at the Tour of Guangxi in China at the end of October, ending his five-year run with Katusha-Alpecin.

Zakarin, who soloed to his first victory in nearly two years on stage 13 of the 2019 Giro d'Italia in Lago Celu, described his move to CCC, which he announced last August, as the start of a "new chapter in his life."

The Russian rider has finished in the top 10 in all three Grand Tours - fifth in the 2017 Giro d'Italia, third in the Vuelta a España that year, and ninth in the 2018 Tour de France - with one stage win in the Tour and twice.

"This season in general consists of mixed emotions," Zakarin said in a CCC press release on Thursday. On the one hand, everything is the same." [On the other hand, everything is new. I spent the off-season with my family, with my children. Together with [teammate] Pavel Kochetkov, I arrived at Mount Teide, 2,200 meters above sea level, a month before the UAE tour, and after 16 days there, I feel ready and motivated for the race," he said of his camp at Volcano, a popular training road on the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. He spoke about the high-altitude camp.

"So I'm excited and very calm at the same time before my first race. I want to show what I can do." I know the climbs of Jebel Hafeet very well and I will do my best to be aggressive."