'It's scary' - Tour de Suisse peloton braced for more dominance from Pogacar and UAE

Pogačar soloed clear with 69km remaining on stage 1 to win by more than two minutes from Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), putting a hefty downpayment on final overall victory here and striking a weighty psychological blow ahead of the Tour de France.

The punchy opening stages of the Tour de Suisse were expected to provide opportunities for riders like Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), but the Dutchman acknowledged before stage 2 that everything depended on the whims of Pogačar and a UAE cohort that includes Brandon McNulty and Jhonatan Narváez.

“It’s scary that they’re very motivated to race, the UAE team, so let’s see what they do today,” Van der Poel told CyclingPro.net when asked about his prospects on stage 2.

“It looks very hard again the final, it depends on how they race. I expect they will do a bit the same as yesterday so for sure it will be hard to be there.”

The former UAE rider Marc Hirschi (Tudor) was more resigned than Van der Poel, admitting that it would “very hard to get a result” against Pogačar and his team this week.

“It will be decided by what UAE want,” Hirschi said of stage 2. “If they want to control then for sure they can do it. Or they will maybe let a breakaway go with some other guys from UAE in it. But for sure, if UAE want to control it, they are capable of doing it with the riders they have.”

The finale in Locarno features the category 3 ascents of Fanghi and Via Consiglio Mezzano, which look like obvious springboards for Pogačar if the race comes back together.

“It’s very difficult to have the shape to beat Tadej, so going in the break might be the only option,” Hirschi said. “But it’s a stage they can control because there are long flats in the valley, and then with the two last climbs, I expect Tadej will go for another attack.”

That thought was echoed by Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who lines up at the Tour de Suisse having raced the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes last week. Although he confessed that Pogačar’s long-range attack on Wednesday had been a surprise, it set the terms of engagement for the remainder of the week.

“I don’t think there’s a moment to anticipate [in the finale] before UAE start to go,” Fisher-Black told CyclingPro.net. “We can only focus on what we can do and hope Tadej is a bit tired from yesterday.”

Tiesj Benoot is making his Decathlon CMA CGM debut at the Tour de Suisse after an injury-blighted start to 2026, and he is hoping that his performance will be enough to rubberstamp his place at the Tour de France. He knows, however, the entire Tour de Suisse will be dictated by UAE’s strategy, and he was unsure about the chances of an early break going the distance on stage 2.

“That’s the thing with UAE and Tadej you don’t know, but there’s also a lot of riders on GC with a big gap, so they don’t want to pull so much and maybe they put a rider in the break instead,” Benoot told CyclingPro.net. “I think the key to today is in the hands of UAE. We’ll see how on the first climb how they manage and what the options are for us.”