{"id":483776,"date":"2026-02-16T13:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483776\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T13:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:59:10","slug":"favorites-stage-2-uae-tour-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483776\/","title":{"rendered":"Favorites stage 2 UAE Tour 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UAE Tour<\/a> continues on Tuesday with an individual time trial, with the riders setting off one by one for a 12.1-kilometre test in the United Arab Emirates. No higher mathematics, but at IDLProcycling.com, we try to break down what to expect.Course stage 2 UAE Tour 2026\"uae-tour-2\"\/<\/p>\n

Flat as a pancake \u2014 that\u2019s this UAE Tour chrono. Just like in recent years, the time trial will be raced on Al Hudayriyat Island.<\/p>\n

Right after the start there\u2019s a fairly technical section with two corners. After that, it\u2019s full gas in a straight line to the intermediate point, which comes after 5.8 kilometres. Then the riders head back towards the start\/finish area, with another technical section as they enter the final three kilometres. The entire time trial is ridden on wide roads.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Climbs
None.<\/p>\n

Times
Start: 10:05 AM
Finish: 12:30 PM<\/p>\n

Start times to follow. <\/p>\n

Weather stage 2 UAE Tour 2026<\/p>\n

The sun will be shining in Abu Dhabi, although the riders will need to factor in a light westerly breeze. Temperatures will sit around 24 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n

Favorites stage 2 UAE Tour 2026The man to beat in this individual time trial is, of course, world champion Remco Evenepoel<\/a> (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe). The Belgian already rode a team time trial in Mallorca with his new squad, but this will be his first solo test against the clock in 2026.<\/p>\n

On paper, Josh Tarling (INEOS Grenadiers) looks like the main challenger for Evenepoel. The Brit won this very time trial last year with a solid margin of 13 seconds. On a short, flat course like this, Tarling can really turn his power into speed.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"tarling-ineos-grenadiers\"\/<\/p>\n

Joshua Tarling; Evenepoel’s big challenger?<\/p>\n

But there are more strong time trialists to watch. Ethan Hayter<\/a> (Soudal Quick-Step), for example, showed several times last season that he can be very sharp in short efforts like these. Stefan Bissegger<\/a> has been proving his ability against the clock for years, and at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale there\u2019s also Daan Hoole<\/a> \u2014 another rider well suited to this kind of course. Lidl\u2013Trek, meanwhile, can look to a big engine like Max Walscheid.Looking at the general classification picture, it will be up to riders such as Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step), Derek Gee (Lidl\u2013Trek), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) and race leader <\/a>Isaac del Toro<\/a> (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG) to limit the damage against Evenepoel. For pure climbers like Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto), that is always going to be a tough assignment.Top favorites: Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Joshua Tarling<\/a> (INEOS Grenadiers)
Outsiders: Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step), Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG), Daan Hoole, Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Max Walscheid (Lidl-Trek)
Long shots: Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step), Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Mattia Cattaneo, Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Florian Vermeersch (UAE Emirates-XRG), Ethan Vernon (NSN), Pablo Castrillo and Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UAE Tour continues on Tuesday with an individual time trial, with the riders setting off one by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,245016,245101,172195,93896,245102,57970,8396,85,245100,180426],"class_list":{"0":"post-483776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-daan-hoole","12":"tag-ethan-hayter","13":"tag-idl-productions","14":"tag-isaac-del-toro","15":"tag-joshua-tarling","16":"tag-previews","17":"tag-remco-evenepoel","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-stefan-bissegger","20":"tag-uae-tour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}