BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS

The team is the face of Bahrain, a little oil-rich country on the Persian Gulf on a mission to make an impact on the global sport scene of the 21st century under the impetus of Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa. The occasional triathlete is the son of king Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and serves both as the president of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports and as the commander of the Royal Guard. His cycling team, which borrows its second name, Victorious, from his horse racing stable (racing and equestrianism, which he also takes part in), secured funding from a consortium of companies based in the Kingdom.

Bahrain–Merida's first couple of participations in the Tour de France, racing in the colours of the Taiwanese bicycle maker Merida, were a big flop, starting with leader Ion Izagirre crashing out of the race during the prologue in Düsseldorf in 2017. Its star rider, Vincenzo Nibali, returned to the Tour de France in 2018 with his sights set on the top step of the podium, only to crash out of the race after a spectator caught their camera strap on his handlebars on the Alpe d'Huez, while his second-in-command, Domenico Pozzovivo, went on to finish eighteenth.

Aware that finishing second in the Giro a couple of months earlier had taken its toll, the 2014 Tour de France champion went into the 2019 Tour without overall ambitions. However, the Shark smelled blood and snapped down on the final opportunity for a stage win at Val Thorens, two weeks after Dylan Teuns opened the team's account in the Grande Boucle on La Planche des Belles Filles. In between these two successes, its other star signing, Rohan Dennis, vanished into thin air on the eve of the time trial in which he was expected to shine as the reigning world champion.

Bahrain McLaren, as the team was known at the time before taking on the moniker Bahrain Victorious, signed Mikel Landa as its new leader. The Basque rider, a regular fixture in the top 10, repeated his performance with Team Sky in 2017 and took fourth place overall. After seven years, his long, long quest to stand on the podium of a Grand Tour again succeeded in the 2022 Giro.

In his absence, his stablemates climbed onto the podium in Paris to receive the team classification trophy in 2021. Matej Mohorič and Dylan Teuns's stage wins and Pello Bilbao's top 10 finish (ninth) capped a strong performance. The Bahraini band was not up to par in the 2022 Tour de France, with Fred Wright's surprise result as runner-up to Mads Pedersen in Saint-Étienne as its main achievement. However, it bounced back in 2023 with three spectacular stage wins by some of its most battle-hardened riders, Pello Bilbao (sixth overall), Wout Poels and Matej Mohorič, coming on the back of three top 3 finishes by the sprinter Phil Bauhaus.

The first race number assigned to the team (no. 61) had been removed from that edition in remembrance of Gino Mäder, who had been slated to make his first appearance in the Grande Boucle but had met a tragic death at the Tour de Suisse two weeks earlier.