The 2023 UAE Tour saw Remco Evenpole take another step toward the Giro d'Italia, Luke Plapp earned his first WorldTour podium, and Adam Yates took his first stage win with UAE Team Emirates.

Mark Cavendish also raced with Astana Kazakstan and new lead-out man Cees Bol. Their journey to success in the Tour de France began in the Middle East.

Boll, 10 years Cavendish's junior, grew up watching the Manxman rack up stage wins at the Tour de France on television.

He particularly remembers "the iconic video of Mark Renshaw leading him on the Champs-Élysées in 2011.

Successfully leading out Cavendish this July would be a dream come true for Boll, but right now the two are still laying the groundwork for a sprint lead-out.

"It's going well and he's a nice guy," Boll said.

"Obviously he has a lot of experience and that's always good. Especially in this race, it's super hard to get a good lead out and at the same time we have to get used to each other. So it's been a challenging week, but I think we've made some good steps."

If the UAE Tour was like a baptism of fire for the two, it is worth remembering that this race was one of the highest quality sprint fields of the season; the UAE Tour has been called the "World Championships for sprinters."

The combination of wide, flat roads and easy stages means that every rider comes into the final kilometer fresh. As the comments from last week's sprint teams suggest, this will be a challenge even for the experienced lead train.

For the new duo, it will be even more difficult.

Boll says they have made considerable progress in working together, although the only way to perfect an effective lead-out is to work together in many different races.

"You need races. You can train for the physical effort, but the confusion within the peloton, the timing, and the reading of the race is something you can only do in a race."

"Since I turned pro, I've always led and sprinted myself, so I'm used to it. It's nice to not always be in the same role on the team and I think that will be the case this year."

Their results in the UAE Tour had little to do with the work underway behind the scenes.

Cavendish finished third in the first stage, while Boll finished 10th. A puncture on the Abu Dhabi breakwater on stage 6 ended Cavendish's chances of repeating his 2022 victory.

Both riders know that effective cooperation takes time and do not expect everything to work out in record time.

"Part of it is getting used to each other, and part of it is me knowing what Cab wants in a particular race. Obviously, we can't discuss that at the exact moment of the sprint. Similarly, off-the-bike, I need to learn about his personality and what kind of sprints he likes to do and what kind of approach he likes to take."

The question of how exactly he works with Cavendish is slowly being answered, but Boll says that Cavendish's technical abilities are already helping him in his work.

"If I'm leading and I have to go through a gap, I have to think, 'Can the player I'm leading get through?'"

"Kav is good at following me, which is good. If I go somewhere a little dangerous, he follows me. It's very different than if I'm only thinking about myself and no one else is following me. "

In addition to getting to know Cavendish personally and discussing his strategy and approach, Boll and Cavendish spend considerable time watching videos of past group sprints near the finish. After the stage, they watch the video again to see what worked, what needs to be improved, and what strategies other teams are using.

Sprint analysis is an important part of the collaborative process.

"It doesn't feel like hard work," Bolt notes." I like cycling and I like watching bike races."

Bol, who raced with the team once in the UAE Tour, says the next phase will require various building blocks, given that Astana Kazakstan is not a team with a big tradition of bunch sprinting.

"It's about coaching the guys in front of us to get where we need to be in the last kilometer. I think that's the biggest thing we have to do right now."

However, lessons learned in the past about correct lead-outs may not apply as well today. The composition of sprints these days has changed, Boll said.

"There are more sprint trains than there used to be, and I think the range of opportunities (such as timing and not too early or too late) to do a good lead-out is narrower.

"The sprint events have changed a lot. However, some athletes are in the top 9 out of 10 sprints. That is impressive.

He names some of the top lead outs.

"Mikhail Morkov (Sourdal-Quickstep) is a good example, and Ramon Shinkeldam (Alpecin Deceuninck, Renshaw ......) is another."

If Boll can help Cavendish win this year, especially in the Tour de France, he will join the list of successful and admired lead-out riders.