Zak Dempster aiming to broaden his horizons in 2018

Zak Dempster says that he's looking to expand his racing repertoire next season after extending his current contract with Israel Cycling Academy into next year. The 30-year-old Australian also wants to focus on honing his lead-outs next season after his team brought in a whole raft of new sprinters for 2018.

"I'm looking forward to broadening my horizons to the tougher races. I'm looking forward to finally nailing some results and not just breakaways in classics and being there in the sharp end of races," Dempster told Cyclingnews at a recent team bonding camp in Israel.

"I think it is important that we work together to get those results so in big bunch sprints I'm more suited to launching a guy than sprinting and that has been obvious for a while now, probably since I started racing now. We've got a bunch of really fast guys like Edwin [Avila] and we've got Mihkel [Raim] who has proven that he can win at pro level. I'm really looking forward to racing with those guys in a lead-out role."

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Dempster joined the Israel Cycling Academy at the start of this season after four years with Bora-Argon 18 (formerly NetApp-Endura). The 30-year-old had been working in a lead-out roll with sprinter Sam Bennett to three victories throughout the 2016 season. Dempster came to the newly promoted squad with the hopes of taking up the leadership role a little more and nail a few more wins along the way.

Crashes in the spring made for a disappointing start to the season and a number of DNFs but there were some more solid results at the end of the season. A win did not come to fruition by the end of the year but ultimately Dempster felt like he had made some steps forward.

"I did some things that I wanted to do and I didn't get to do some things that I wanted to do. That's pretty standard. In general, I think I had a pretty good standard," said Dempster. "I had some off periods in the spring, but especially with my London result and a few others, I was happy with how I rode and how I progressed and I definitely think that I am a better athlete.

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