2005 Tour de France
The 2005 Tour de France was the 92nd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between 2–24 July, with 21 stages covering a distance 3,593 km, it has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong won the event, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced in August 2012 that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his seven Tour de France wins from 1999–2005. The first stages were held for the third time in 12 years; the 2005 Tour was announced on 28 October 2004. It was a clockwise route. Armstrong took the top step on the podium, for what was the seventh consecutive time, he was accompanied on the podium by Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, but in 2012 Ullrich's results were annulled. The points classification was won by Thor Hushovd, the mountains classification by Michael Rasmussen; the race was seen by 15 million spectators along the road, by 2 billion viewers on TV. In 2005, the UCI had started the ProTour: 20 teams were given a ProTour licence, were required to start in all ProTour races, which included the Tour de France.
The Tour de France organisation was not happy with this rule, as they wanted to be able to decide which teams would join their race. While negotiations were still ongoing, it was decided to use the UCI rule for the 2005 Tour, so all 20 ProTour teams were automatically invited; the Tour organisation could invite one extra team with a wildcard, used this to invite AG2R Prévoyance. All teams were composed of nine cyclists, so 189 riders in 21 teams commenced the 2005 Tour de France. Of them, 155 riders finished; the teams entering the race were: The main favourite was six-time winner Armstrong. Armstrong had had doubts if he should start the 2005 Tour, but decided in February 2005 that he would race, his main rival Ullrich was happy with this decision, as he thought it would be a better race with Armstrong present. In previous years, Ullrich never had the full support of his team to win the general classification, as his team was aiming for stage victories. In 2005, Erik Zabel, who had won the points classification six times, was left out of the team, Ullrich was supported by Klöden and Vinokourov, who both had reached the podium on the Tour.
On the day before the Tour started, Ullrich crashed into his team director's car, but was not injured. The Tour commemorated the death of Fabio Casartelli. During the 15th stage the riders passed the Col de Portet d'Aspet, where Casartelli died 10 years earlier, in the 1995 Tour de France; the Tour commemorated the first time there was an official mountain climb in the Tour, the Ballon d'Alsace. During the 9th stage this mountain was passed again 100 years after the first ascent in the Tour; the 2005 Tour de France was divided into 21 stages. These stages belong to different categories: 8 were flat stages, 5 were medium mountain stages, 5 were high mountain stages, 2 were individual time trials and 1 was a team time trial; the distinction between flat stage, medium mountain stage and high mountain stage is important for the points classification. There were two rest days, in Pau; the traditional prologue on the first day was replaced by an individual time trial of more than twice the length of a standard prologue.
This stage crossed from the mainland of France to the Île de Noirmoutier. The most famous route to this island is the Passage du Gois, a road, under water at high tide; this road was included in the 1999 Tour. Several of the favorites crashed there that year, ended that stage 7 minutes behind the peloton; this year they took the bridge to the island. In the race, there was one more time trial, on the penultimate day. There were just three uphill finishes, a lower number than in previous years; the finish line of the last stage was, as has been on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. In the stages that were not time trials, there were intermediate sprints. Cyclist who crossed the intermediate sprints first received points for the points classification, bonification seconds for the general classification; until stage 8, there were three intermediate sprints, from stage 9 on there were two. In Stage 1, David Zabriskie, a former team mate of Lance Armstrong, beat Armstrong by two seconds. In the team time trial of stage 4, Zabriskie fell in the last kilometers, Armstrong took over the lead.
Armstrong refused to wear the yellow jersey in the fifth stage but was forced by the Tour organisation, who threatened to remove him from the race. In the tenth stage, the start was moved from Grenoble to Froges. Before the 20th stage, an individual time trial, Michael Rasmussen occupied the third place in the general classification. During that stage, Rasmussen fell multiple times and changed bicycles multiple times, lost so much time that he ended up at the seventh place in the general classification; the race jury invoked the'rain rule' for the Champs-Élysées, meaning that Lance Armstrong became the winner of the General classification the first time the race passed the finish line, rather than the eighth time as normal. The time bonification for the winner of the stage was still given, Alexander Vinokourov profited from this as he won the stage after an escape in the last kilometer, passed Levi Leipheimer in the general classification to end fifth. During the final ceremonies in Paris, Armstrong was allowed to talk to the crowds, the first time in the Tour's history that a winner was given this chance.
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Road bicycle racing
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors and spectators; the two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start and race to set finish point. Stage races or "tours" take multiple days, consist of several mass-start or time-trial stages ridden consecutively. Professional racing has been most popular in Western Europe, centered on France, Spain and the Low Countries. Since the mid-1980s the sport has diversified with professional races now held on all continents of the globe. Semi-professional and amateur races are held in many countries; the sport is governed by the Union Cycliste Internationale. As well as the UCI's annual World Championships for men and women, the biggest event is the Tour de France, a three-week race that can attract over 500,000 roadside supporters a day. Road racing in its modern form originated in the late 19th century.
It began as an organized sport in 1868. The sport was popular in the western European countries of France, Spain and Italy, some of those earliest road bicycle races remain among the sport's biggest events; these early races include Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Paris–Roubaix, the Tour de France, the Milan–San Remo and Giro di Lombardia, the Giro d'Italia, the Volta a Catalunya, the Tour of Flanders. They provided a template for other races around the world. Cycling has been part of the Summer Olympic Games since the modern sequence started in Athens in 1896; the most competitive and devoted countries since the beginning of 20th century were Belgium and Italy road cycling spread in Colombia, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland after World War II. However nowadays as the sport grows in popularity through globalization, countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia, South Africa, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States continue to produce world-class cyclists. Single-day race distances may be as long as 180 miles.
Courses may run from place to comprise one or more laps of a circuit. Races over short circuits in town or city centres, are known as criteriums; some races, known as handicaps, ages. Individual time trial is an event in which cyclists race alone against the clock on flat or rolling terrain, or up a mountain road. A team time trial, including two-man team time trial, is a road-based bicycle race in which teams of cyclists race against the clock. In both team and individual time trials, the cyclists start the race at different times so that each start is fair and equal. Unlike individual time trials where competitors are not permitted to'draft' behind each other, in team time trials, riders in each team employ this as their main tactic, each member taking a turn at the front while teammates'sit in' behind. Race distances vary from a few km to between 20 miles and 60 miles. Stage races consist of stages, ridden consecutively; the competitor with the lowest cumulative time to complete all stages is declared the overall, or general classification, winner.
Stage races may have other classifications and awards, such as individual stage winners, the points classification winner, the "King of the Mountains" winner. A stage race can be a series of road races and individual time trials; the stage winner is the first person to cross the finish line that day or the time trial rider with the lowest time on the course. The overall winner of a stage race is the rider who takes the lowest aggregate time to complete all stages. Three-week stage races are called Grand Tours; the professional road bicycle racing calendar includes three Grand Tours - the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, the Vuelta a Espana. Ultra-distance cycling races are long single stage events where the race clock continuously runs from start to finish, they last several days and the riders take breaks on their own schedules, with the winner being the first one to cross the finish line. Among the best-known ultramarathons is the Race Across America, a coast-to-coast non-stop, single-stage race in which riders cover 3,000 miles in about a week.
The race is sanctioned by the UltraMarathon Cycling Association. RAAM and similar events allow racers to be supported by a team of staff. A number of tactics are employed to reach the objective of a race; this objective is being the first to cross the finish line in the case of a single-stage race, clocking the least aggr
Fassa Bortolo
Fassa Bortolo was a professional road bicycle racing team founded in 2000 and led by Giancarlo Ferretti. Dubbed the'Silver Team', it managed to be one of the most successful teams of the era, not in the least due to top sprinter Alessandro Petacchi. In its six competitive years, Fassa Bortolo won over 200 races, including stages in all three Grand Tours, it was one of the inaugural 20 UCI ProTour teams in 2005. Fassa Bortolo stopped the sponsorship of the team after 2005. Efforts to find a new co-sponsor for 2006 proved unsuccessful. On October 14, 2005, a man claiming to represent proposed new sponsor Sony Ericsson turned out to be an imposter, leaving all staff and riders unemployed. Petacchi and some of his helpers moved to the new Team Milram, a continuation of the Domina Vacanze Team; the other Fassa Bortolo riders all moved to different teams. The main part of the riders signed early contracts with new teams for 2006, all riders found new teams. 2001 1st Lithuanian National Road Championship, Raimondas Rumsas 1st Russian National Road Championship, Dmitry Konyshev 2002 1st Ukrainian National Road Championship, Serhiy Honchar 2003 1st Slovenian National Road Championship, Tadej Valjavec 2004 1st Luxembourg National Road Championship, Kim Kirchen 1st Swiss National Time Trial Championship, Fabian Cancellara
HTC–Highroad
HTC–Highroad is a former professional cycling team competing in international road bicycle races. Their last title sponsor was HTC Corporation, a Taiwanese manufacturer of smartphones but dissolved at the end of the 2011 season from a failure to find a new sponsor. High Road Sports was the management company of team manager Bob Stapleton. Past title sponsors include Deutsche Telekom; the team was founded in 1991 as Team Telekom, sponsored by Deutsche Telekom. In 2004 their name changed to the T-Mobile Team; the team was under the management of Rolf Aldag. Former leaders included Olaf Ludwig, Walter Godefroot and Eddy Vandenhecke, Luuc Eisenga and Brian Holm, Valerio Piva. At the end of 1988, former World Champion Hennie Kuiper set up a German cycling team, sponsored by the city of Stuttgart and rode on Eddy Merckx cycles; the team had nine riders. At that time when there were no German cycling teams and the country's main cycling event, the Rund um den Henninger Turm had not been won by a German since Rudi Altig in 1970.
During its first year of existence team rider Dariusc Kajzer brought the team its first success in the National Road Race Championships in Germany. The team became Stuttgart-Mercedes-Merckx-Puma in 1990 and Bölts continued the success of the team by becoming road race champion of Germany. Deutsche Telekom came in as the main sponsor in 1991 and the team was known as Telekom-Mercedes-Merckx-Puma. According to an interview with Godefroot, it was Bölts’ 17th place at the 1991 Vuelta a España that prompted him to accept the Telekom management’s offer to take over the running of the team. Godefroot signed several riders including Classics specialist and 1991 Paris–Roubaix winner Marc Madiot. Bölts, involved with the team since its beginnings in 1989 would stay with the team until 2003, continued building on the successes of the team by winning stage 19, the Queen stage of the 1992 Giro d'Italia. Jens Heppner continued this streak with his overall tenth place at the 1992 Tour de France; the Telekom team signed all the promising cyclists that were coming from Germany at that time and who were becoming successful.
These included Jens Heppner and Christian Henn in 1992, Erik Zabel, Rolf Aldag and Steffen Wesemann in 1993 and Jan Ullrich in 1994. Many of these riders would ride for more than ten years with the team. Olaf Ludwig signed in 1993 and finished his career with the team. In 1994, Zabel won the first UCI Road World Cup victory in the history of the Paris -- Tours. In 1993, the team again achieved success in the national championship road race in Germany; this was possession of the German champion's jersey. Many of the successful team riders that spent many years of their career with Telekom would become German national champions – Bernd Gröne in 1993, Jens Heppner in 1994, Bölts in 1990, 1995 and 1999, Christian Henn in 1996, Jan Ullrich in 1997 and 2001, Erik Zabel in 1998 and 2003, Rolf Aldag in 2000, Danilo Hondo in 2002 and Andreas Klöden in 2004; the team soon became an important presence on the international cycling stage. However the team was not invited to the 1995 Tour de France; the organisers of the Tour agreed that six Telekom members, namely Rolf Aldag, Udo Bölts, Jens Heppner, Vladimir Pulnikov, Erik Zabel and Olaf Ludwig would join with three members of the ZG Mobili to form a composite team.
Zabel went on to win two stages in the race. The next two years saw the international breakthrough of the team. Godefroot brought in the Danish rider, Bjarne Riis, the third-place finisher of the 1995 Tour and he went on to win the 1996 Tour de France, with the 22-year-old German support rider Jan Ullrich finishing in second place. In addition, Zabel won the first of six green jerseys for winning the points competition. Bolts won the Clásica de San Sebastián and Wesemann won his second and the first of four wins with the Telekom team of the Peace Race; the 1997 Tour de France saw the emergence of Ullrich as he won the race with support from Riis, who in turn had won the World Cup race, Amstel Gold Race earlier in 1997. Team Telekom won the team classification, as the overall strongest team of the 1997 Tour. In addition, Bolts won the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, Zabel won Milan–San Remo for the first of four times with the team. Ullrich won the Championships of Hamburg semi-classic; the following year this race was elevated to the status of World Cup.
In addition the Deutschland Tour returned in 1999 – evidence of the continuing popularity of cycling in Germany at the time. While Ullrich had a crash in the race and was forced to retire, Team Telekom did win the first edition of the race with Heppner and would win the race again with Alexander Vinokourov in 2001. Ullrich finished second in the 1998 Tour de France but went on to win the 1999 Vuelta a España, although he missed the 1999 Tour de France due to a knee injury. After winning the Vuelta, Ullrich became World time trial champion which enabled him to wear the rainbow jersey during time trials, he would win this again in 2001. The next year, Zabel won the overall World Cup victory, having won the Milan–San Remo and Amstel Gold Race, while Ullrich was placed second again in the 2000 Tour de France to Lance Armstrong. Ullrich won the gold medal in the silver medal in the Olympic time trial. In 2001, Zabel won Milan–San Remo for the fourth time. Ullrich came in second in the 2001 Tour de France, while Zabel won six stages combined in the 2001 Tour and Vuelta.
Kazakh rider Alexander Vinokourov won the Paris–Nice stage race in 2002, a feat he would duplicate in 2003 winning the Amstel Gold R
Italy
Italy the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Austria and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 and has a temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe. Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has been home to a myriad of peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout modern-day Italy, the most famous of which being the Indo-European Italics who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era and Carthaginians founded colonies in insular Italy and Genoa, Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively; the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People.
The Roman Republic conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the peninsula, in some cases through the establishment of federations, the Republic expanded and conquered parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became the leading cultural and religious centre of Western civilisation, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's technology, economy and literature flourished. Italy remained the metropole of the Roman Empire; the legacy of the Roman Empire endured its fall and can be observed in the global distribution of culture, governments and the Latin script. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy endured sociopolitical collapse and barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous rival city-states and maritime republics in the northern and central regions of Italy, rose to great prosperity through shipping and banking, laying the groundwork for modern capitalism.
These independent statelets served as Europe's main trading hubs with Asia and the Near East enjoying a greater degree of democracy than the larger feudal monarchies that were consolidating throughout Europe. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science and art. Italian culture flourished, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Machiavelli. During the Middle Ages, Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Italy's commercial and political power waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean. Centuries of infighting between the Italian city-states, such as the Italian Wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, left the region fragmented, it was subsequently conquered and further divided by European powers such as France and Austria.
By the mid-19th century, rising Italian nationalism and calls for independence from foreign control led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of foreign domination and political division, Italy was entirely unified in 1871, establishing the Kingdom of Italy as a great power. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy industrialised, namely in the north, acquired a colonial empire, while the south remained impoverished and excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading to the rise of a fascist dictatorship in 1922. Participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and the Italian Civil War. Following the liberation of Italy and the rise of the resistance, the country abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, enjoyed a prolonged economic boom and, despite periods of sociopolitical turmoil became a developed country.
Today, Italy is considered to be one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries, with the sixth-largest worldwide national wealth. Its advanced economy ranks eighth-largest in the world and third in the Eurozone by nominal GDP. Italy owns the third-largest central bank gold reserve, it has a high level of human development, it stands among the top countries for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and a member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7, the G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, the Schengen Area and many more; as a reflection
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual men's multiple stage bicycle race held in France, while occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours, it consists of 21 day-long stages over the course of 23 days; the race was first organized in 1903 to increase sales for the newspaper L'Auto and is run by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1903 except when it was stopped for the two World Wars; as the Tour gained prominence and popularity, the race was lengthened and its reach began to extend around the globe. Participation expanded from a French field, as riders from all over the world began to participate in the race each year; the Tour is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are UCI WorldTeams, with the exception of the teams that the organizers invite. Traditionally, the race is held in the month of July. While the route changes each year, the format of the race stays the same with the appearance of time trials, the passage through the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and the Alps, the finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
The modern editions of the Tour de France consist of 21 day-long segments over a 23-day period and cover around 3,500 kilometres. The race alternates between counterclockwise circuits of France. There are between 20 and 22 teams, with eight riders in each. All of the stages are timed to the finish; the rider with the lowest cumulative finishing times is the leader of the race and wears the yellow jersey. While the general classification garners the most attention, there are other contests held within the Tour: the points classification for the sprinters, the mountains classification for the climbers, young rider classification for riders under the age of 26, the team classification for the fastest teams. Achieving a stage win provides prestige accomplished by a team's cycling sprinter specialist; the Tour de France was created in 1903. The roots of the Tour de France trace back to the emergence of two rival sports newspapers in the country. On one hand was Le Vélo, the first and the largest daily sports newspaper in France which sold 80,000 copies a day.
On the other was L'Auto, set-up by journalists and business-people including Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, Adolphe Clément, Édouard Michelin in 1899. The rival paper emerged following disagreements over the Dreyfus Affair, a cause célèbre that divided France at the end of the 19th century over the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer convicted—though exonerated—of selling military secrets to the Germans; the new newspaper appointed Henri Desgrange as the editor. He was a prominent owner with Victor Goddet of the velodrome at the Parc des Princes. De Dion knew him through his cycling reputation, through the books and cycling articles that he had written, through press articles he had written for the Clément tyre company. L'Auto was not the success. Stagnating sales lower than the rival it was intended to surpass led to a crisis meeting on 20 November 1902 on the middle floor of L'Auto's office at 10 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, Paris; the last to speak was the most junior there, the chief cycling journalist, a 26-year-old named Géo Lefèvre.
Desgrange had poached him from Giffard's paper. Lefèvre suggested a six-day race of the sort popular on the track but all around France. Long-distance cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers, but nothing of the length that Lefèvre suggested had been attempted. If it succeeded, it would help L'Auto match its rival and put it out of business, it could, as Desgrange said, "nail Giffard's beak shut." Desgrange and Lefèvre discussed it after lunch. Desgrange was doubtful but the paper's financial director, Victor Goddet, was enthusiastic, he handed Desgrange the keys to the company safe and said: "Take whatever you need." L'Auto announced the race on 19 January 1903. The first Tour de France was staged in 1903; the plan was a five-stage race from 31 May to 5 July, starting in Paris and stopping in Lyon, Marseille and Nantes before returning to Paris. Toulouse was added to break the long haul across southern France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Stages would go through the night and finish next afternoon, with rest days before riders set off again.
But this proved too daunting and the costs too great for most and only 15 competitors had entered. Desgrange had never been wholly convinced and he came close to dropping the idea. Instead, he cut the length to 19 days, changed the dates to 1 to 19 July, offered a daily allowance to those who averaged at least 20 kilometres per hour on all the stages, equivalent to what a rider would have expected to earn each day had he worked in a factory, he cut the entry fee from 20 to 10 francs and set the first prize at 12,000 francs and the prize for each day's winner at 3,000 francs. The winner would thereby win six times; that attracted between 60 and 80 entrants – the higher number may have included serious inquiries and some who dropped out – among them not just professionals but amateurs, some unemployed, some adventurous. Desgrange seems not to have forgotten the Dreyfus Affair that launched his race and raised the passions of his backers, he announced his new race on 1 July 1903 by citing the writer Émile Zola, whose open letter J'Accuse…! led to Dreyfus's acquittal, establishing the florid style he used henceforth.
The first Tour de France started outside the Ca
UAE Team Emirates
UAE Team Emirates is an Emirati road bicycle racing team. The team competes at UCI WorldTeam level and has done so since the UCI World Tour was formed as the top category of road cycling in 2005; however the team was temporarily suspended from the ProTour in 2010. The team consists of Italian riders: general manager Giuseppe Saronni was himself a famous professional cyclist and winner of 2 editions of the Giro d'Italia. Following the tradition at Saeco, the team is well known for its publicity stunts. In the 2005 Giro d'Italia the team engaged in a press campaign Battaile d'Italia featuring their co-captains Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego. During a rest day of the Giro, the team elected to visit the Monza race track for a photo-op and some training sessions. For the 2013 season the team will now ride Merida bikes. Although Wilier had been contracted through to the end of the 2013 season, they cited that Lampre broke the terms and conditions of the contract, terminated their technical sponsorship.
In August 2016 the team confirmed that its WorldTeam licence was being transferred from CGS Cycling to Chinese company TJ Sport Consultation, with the team becoming the first Chinese WorldTour team from 2017. Former Saunier Duval–Prodir team manager Mauro Gianetti was announced as the co-ordinator for the project. In an interview with Gazetta dello Sport the following month, Saronni confirmed that he and CGS Cycling would continue to manage the team on TJ Sport's behalf, that the team's bicycles would be supplied by Colnago, he indicated that the project was being co-ordinated by the Chinese government via TJ Sport with involvement from a number of Chinese companies including Alibaba, that its aim was to develop Chinese cycling and riders. However when the UCI awarded 17 WorldTour licences to teams in November, it announced that TJ Sport's application was "under review" by its Licensing Commission. According to Saronni, the reason for the delay was that the head of the TJ Sport project, Li Zhiqiang, had fallen ill, which prevented funding for the project from being confirmed.
As a result, the team looked elsewhere for sponsorship, securing funding from the United Arab Emirates and changing its name to UAE Abu Dhabi. The UCI confirmed the team's WorldTour licence on 20 December. In February 2017, the team announced that airline Emirates had signed on with the team as a naming-rights sponsor; the team will subsequently be known as: UAE Team Emirates. In June 2017, two days before the 2017 Tour de France the team announced it would be sponsored by the First Abu Dhabi Bank, an amalgamation of the First Gulf Bank and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, with their logo being added to the chest and side of the team's jersey; as of 6 January 2019. Official website
