UAE Team Emirates sometime leader Fabio Aru has told La Gazzetta dello Sport that is 'convinced' he will get back to his best after two seasons hindered by injury.
The 29-year-old Italian has a number of stage wins to his name, including overall Grand Tour win at the Vuelta a Espana in 2015, second in the Giro d'Italia (also in 2015) and 5th in the Tour de France in 2017.
In 2018, Aru left Astana, the team he’d been with for six seasons, and signed a three-year contract with UAE-Team Emirates. What followed was a disappointing start to the season, a diagnosis of a constriction of the iliac artery and, in March 2019, angioplasty surgery, forcing him to abandon the racing scene throughout the recovery process.
He now claims that he is back on track and looking forward to racing again next year.
'I’m convinced that I lost two seasons not through my fault,' he told La Gazzetta, 'but I am equally convinced that I will be able to return to my level, fighting for important objectives, making the difference going uphill, and silencing the critics.
'If I really thought I couldn’t do more, fighting to stay with the best without any good reason, not being myself, then I would be the first in taking note and I would not discount stepping away,' he added.
'But I think that’s a science fiction hypothesis, because I know I have the legs to be with the best.'