Evenepoel, Del Toro and the five storylines to watch at the 2026 UAE Tour

Remco Evenepoel has made a perfect start to life at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, but modern cycling being what it is, it probably would have been more newsworthy if he hadn’t. These days, the biggest hitters in the peloton are expected to win every time they pin on a number, especially if nobody else in their weight class is in the ring with them. 

The Belgian put on a sparkling show in Mallorca and Valencia, but he knows tougher tests lie ahead, starting with the UAE Tour. The race was supposed to provide a head-to-head with Jonas Vingegaard and Red Bull maintain that Evenepoel opted for the UAE Tour in the first place in the hopes of testing himself against Tadej Pogacar. 

As it turns out, neither of the post-pandemic Tour de France winners will be in the UAE, but Evenepoel will still face stiff opposition from Isaac del Toro, who is backed by a strong UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad.

But perhaps of greater interest for Remco-watchers will be the comparison with his last outing at the UAE Tour in 2023. Evenepoel won the GC quite emphatically back then, but he was relatively conservative in how he managed the two summit finishes, channelling Miguel Induráin as he limited the damage to keep his red jersey. It will be fascinating to see if Evenepoel opts for a more aggressive approach three years on. His fast start in Spain suggests he might.

Tadej Pogacar’s paymasters would surely have appreciated his presence at the UAE Tour, but the Slovenian has opted against any stage races ahead of his Classics campaign. In his absence, UAE Team Emirates-XRG have handed the reins of leadership to Isaac del Toro, a decision that reads like a considerable vote of confidence in the Mexican given the talent on the roster.

Del Toro has earned that place on the depth chart with his displays in 2025. The Giro d’Italia was a breakthrough race, and though it ended in heartbreak when he lost the pink jersey on the penultimate day, he bounced back in remarkable fashion, scorching the earth with 14 wins from 28 in the final months of the season.

In 2026, Del Toro will make his debut at the Tour in the service of Pogacar, but UAE’s hope is that it might also give him a taste of his future. Pogacar’s weariness with the Tour is well documented by now, and in the not-too-distant future, he might give more serious considering to skipping the race altogether.

For Del Toro, every stage race without Pogacar by his side is something of an audition for the role of next man up in UAE’s Tour hierarchy. Taking Evenepoel’s scalp here would be a weighty line in his resumé. Adam Yates will line up by his side.

He was originally pencilled to ride the Volta ao Algarve alongside Juan Ayuso, but Lidl-Trek have instead opted to dispatch new signing Derek Gee-West to the UAE Tour. It makes sense on a couple of levels. A couple of tough summit finishes will offer a more useful early-season gauge ahead of the Giro d’Italia than the punchier fare in the Algarve, while it also means Gee-West will get some experience of racing alongside sprinter Jonathan Milan, Lidl-Trek’s other focal point in May.

In any case, Gee-West will simply be relieved to be back in the peloton after a long break from racing during his fractious departure from Israel-Premier Tech. Since placing a fine fourth overall at last year’s Giro, Gee-West’s only racing came at the Canadian Championships in June. 

Speaking last month, Gee-West maintained that he had managed to train solidly throughout his spell on the sidelines, but he will be glad of the reassurance of getting swiftly up to race speed. The stage 2 time trial, meanwhile, gives him an early chance to put himself in podium contention here.

The lie of the land means that the UAE Tour has always been a happy hunting ground for sprinters, to the extent that the race has regularly attracted the best sprint field of the season outside of the Tour de France.

Last year was a case in point, with the two big beasts of contemporary sprinting, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) going head to head and claiming two stage wins apiece.

That desert was expected to be renewed this year, but Merlier’s nagging knee injury means that he has delayed the start of his season until March. In his absence, Milan looks the overwhelming favourite to dominate on the flat stages this time out, while his Lidl-Trek squad will carry the burden of controlling the race.

Other fast men in the field, like Alberto Dainese (Soudal-QuickStep), Juan Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and Fabio Jakobsen (Picnic-PostNL), would need to be more or less flawless to trouble the Italian and their teams might race accordingly.

The pre-race favourites are obvious, but the UAE Tour has the useful habit of throwing up some pointers for the season to come. Back in 2021, for instance, an unheralded Vingegaard claimed stage victory on Jebel Jais, with more than one television commentator misidentifying him as teammate Chris Harper. That July, he would enjoy a break-out Tour de France.

Last year, Giulio Ciccone’s second place on GC prefigured his fine season, while Ben O’Connor showcased his 2024 form early at the UAE Tour – though he left the race rueing missing out on overall victory by just two seconds. 

Behind Evenepoel, Del Toro et al, riders like Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ United) and Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike) will hope a big performance here can be a portent of things to come later in the year. 

• Preview
• How to watch?
• Start list
• Stage-by-stage guide
• Sprinters to watch