'A big responsibility' - How Brandon McNulty is adjusting to the rainbow jersey

Even for world champions, the aftermath of a bike race is often like an orienteering competition. Brandon McNulty knew the drill when he rolled to a halt on Piazza Monte Grappa at the end of Tre Valli Varesine. Moments earlier, he and his colleagues had been breathlessly chasing the winning break before a live television audience. Now they were back in the civilian world and trying to locate their team buses, which were scattered down a succession of Varese side streets.

McNulty’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG bus was visible, but his route to it was initially blocked by a combination of steel barriers, committed spectators and indifferent varesini strolling towards their Tuesday evening aperitivo.

Eventually, a pathway opened. “Luigi, look, it’s the world champion,” a father pointed to his son as McNulty was ushered towards his bus, climbing aboard and wearily clocking off after his 200km of labour. Some aspects of the cycling life never change, even if the rainbow jersey on his back changes the dimension of McNulty’s career. 

McNulty had already been scheduled to finish his season with a slate of Italian one-day races before his victory in Montreal, and UAE saw no reason to change his programme, which offers the American a chance to get used to the weight of the rainbow bands.

“He’s realised in these days that wearing the jersey is a big responsibility and it always makes you more visible, so he’s watched more closely,” team CEO Mauro Gianetti told Domestique.

“A wider public gets to discover him now, and he’s a lad who can really honour this jersey. We’ve already seen that this week, he’s been in front every day, on the attack and making the race. Having the jersey is big obligation, but it’s also a great one to have. And it’s a responsibility that will definitely make him mature.”

Now 28, McNulty has already been developing in the UAE system for seven seasons, having made the leap to the WorldTour from Rally ahead of the 2020 season. A former junior world champion in the time trial, McNulty was a highly scouted talent, and he has proceeded to win 23 races as a pro, including a stage of the Giro d’Italia in 2023 and last year’s Tour de Pologne.

But the depth of UAE’s roster means that McNulty has more often been pressed into a supporting role, and not just on behalf of Tadej Pogačar. At last year’s Giro, for instance, he started the race in the service of Juan Ayuso and ended it in support of Isaac del Toro, all while helping himself to ninth overall. It remains to be seen if McNulty’s new status as world champion will lead to a different place in UAE’s internal hierarchy in 2027.

“When you’re riding alongside Tadej, it’s easy to think you have to be a domestique,” Gianetti said. “However, it’s clear that certain races will be set aside for him, because the world champion deserves it – he’s earned it – so he’ll have plenty of scope and a great deal of responsibility in this jersey.”

UAE had already made a point of carving out specific opportunities for McNulty in 2025, when he scored wins at the Tour de Pologne and CRO Tour, but his rainbow jersey doesn’t mean his freedom to chase victories will extend across the calendar. 

“We can consider giving him even more responsibility next year, but we don’t want to give him too much either, because it’s only right that everyone in our team has their own chance,” Gianetti said. “He’ll have a bit more, because he’s in an important position and he deserves it, but we won’t go overboard. It wouldn’t be right in his case to give him too much either, that doesn’t seem fair to me.”

When McNulty won in Poland last year, Gianetti floated the idea that he might eventually be given a chance to lead at a Grand Tour, but the rainbow jersey is unlikely to accelerate that project given that the UAE depth chart already includes Pogačar, Del Toro, João Almeida and Adam Yates.

“For now, he’s shown in one-week races that he’s truly at the very highest level, while for three-week races we still need to do a few more tests,” Gianetti said. “It’s clear that he’s never managed it so far, but that’s maybe also because he’s never had the goal of having to fight for the GC. 

“But it’s something we might discover together. We already extended his contract on a long-term basis last year, so we’ve got plenty of time to discover a champion who has been revealing his true potential over the years, without rushing things.”

Patience has been a byword of McNulty’s career, dating back to when he rejected offers from Europe to spend his first three years out of the junior ranks racing for an American team. Through his long tenure at UAE, meanwhile, he has operated in the shadow of Pogačar and others, but they were regular displays of his potential, like his monumental show of pace-making at Peyragudes on the 2022 Tour de France.

It all meant that McNulty’s world title in Montreal was unexpected but hardly inexplicable. UAE’s stockpiling of talent means that most of the men in Pogačar’s retinue are capable of leading elsewhere. Gianetti told McNulty as much when he met him on the eve of the Worlds. 

“We know he’s a champion, and it’s no by chance that the day before, when I went to see him at the hotel, I told him: ‘Look, you really can win the Worlds. It’s not a fantasy, it’s a reality, especially if you play your cards right,’” Gianetti said. “And that’s how he won it, but he was already one of the five or six strongest riders there at the start.”

McNulty continues his Italian swing at Gran Piemonte on Thursday before he turns his attention to Il Lombardia. On Saturday, Del Toro will lead the line for UAE as they look for a sixth straight win in the Race of the Falling Leaves, but the absence of Pogačar notionally creates a more open race. McNulty could yet find himself deploy as a foil rather than a luxury domestique.

“A race that hard is one that will ultimately be fought out among the best,” Gianetti said. “But with Brandon and Del Toro, we have a good duo who can play their cards.”