Adam Yates will make his season debut at the UAE Tour on Sunday. The Mitchelton-Scott climber will be looking to mix it up on the two summit finishes of Jebel Hafeet, which will be used twice in the finish of stages 3 and 5.

"It's very exciting to be back racing. My winter training has been going really well, so it's good to see how I'm doing." [It's the first race of the season, so I'll be targeting two summit stages. Hopefully I can stay out of trouble and challenge for the GC. But first I hope to get back into the rhythm of the race and find my legs again."

Yates will be assisted on the climb by Tsgab Gourmay, while sprinter Luka Mezgec has strong teammates in Jack Bauer, Callum Scottson, Michael Hepburn, and Kayden Groves.

"It's a really well-rounded team with both GC and sprint options. [There are] five sprint stages and two climbing stages." [It's] the first time we've had a race with the same finish twice. It's an interesting concept." We'll see who has the legs in the third stage and it will be clear what the GC will be. I think both stages will have similar results."

On the climb, McPartland continued: "It's not that steep and the road is wide, so it's not complicated.

"He'll want to start the season on the right foot, and there are a lot of guys out there who will be competing on GC all year," he said, citing Chris Froome (Team Ineos) and Ilnur Zakarin (CCC Team), Movistar's Alejandro Valverde, Tadey Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates), and Wout Poels (Bahrain McLaren), who will compete in the race in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from Sunday, February 23 to Saturday, February 29.

Mitchelton Scott for the 2020 UAE Tour: Jack Bauer, Tsgab Gourmay, Kayden Groves, Michael Hepburn, Luca Medjeck, Callum Scottson, Adam Yates