On the punishing slopes of Villars-sur-Ollon, Tadej Poga\u010dar rode to his third stage win of the week in Switzerland, with the Slovenian sealing the overall Tour de Suisse title.<\/p>\n
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For the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider, the race is another addition to his palmar\u00e8s, which now counts six of cycling\u2019s \u2018big seven\u2019 stage races. Only Itzulia Basque Country is left to claim for Poga\u010dar, who has recently won the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse as his build-up to the Tour de France continues.<\/p>\n
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The Tour de Suisse has been a memorable one for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with the Emirati squad taking four of the race\u2019s five stages, through Poga\u010dar and his teammate Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez. In addition to Poga\u010dar\u2019s victory in the general classification, the 27-year-old\u2019s teammate Brandon McNulty also finished the week in sixth overall.<\/p>\n
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Stage 5 offered Poga\u010dar a final opportunity to make clear his authority in the leader\u2019s jersey, and the world champion did not pass up the chance. Despite a strong breakaway heading up the road, Poga\u010dar refused to relinquish his ambitions on a third stage win.<\/p>\n
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As the likes of Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Paul Double (Jayco AlUla) butted heads in the breakaway, Poga\u010dar\u2019s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad went to work at the front of the peloton. Little by little, the gap to the front was reduced, and with the help of Decathlon CMA CGM, the breakaway was within touching distance at the bottom of the final climb.<\/p>\n
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There was still work for Poga\u010dar to do, however, who went on the attack with 8.2km to go. His gap from the front of the race was around a minute, and the Slovenian rode past dropped riders as the kilometres to go ticked down. As the sun shone in Switzerland, so too did Poga\u010dar in the yellow leader\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n
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In the end, only Lenny Martinez stood between the world champion and a third stage win of the week, and the Frenchman could only resist Poga\u010dar\u2019s might for so long. With a little over a kilometre to ride, Poga\u010dar snapped at the heels of Martinez, and immediately launched an attack over the top of the Bahrain Victorious rider.<\/p>\n
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The move was enough to see Poga\u010dar go alone, with the 27-year-old crossing the line some seven seconds ahead of Martinez at the summit. The victory secured Poga\u010dar\u2019s win overall, taken with an advantage of over six and a half minutes to his nearest competitor. Now with 121 wins in his palmar\u00e8s, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider can look ahead to the Tour de France full of confidence.<\/p>\n
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Poga\u010dar: \u201cIt was a super hard day. The parcours was really tough and with the team, we did a super job. It was getting harder and harder every lap that we did, and in the end, it was an all-out effort. Decathlon was also trying to do a big pace in the last climb, so I just tried to continue and keep with this pace to the top. It was a brutal day today, and also super hot, so I am happy to take the win, also the GC, and now I can go back home to Ur\u0161ka.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was good on the final climb. With this heat, this is likely how it will look at the Tour de France, and so much elevation before. So it was really good to test the legs, the heart, and the lungs on the final climb. I went all out, and it was really hard, but actually a nice climb.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNow it is time to reset a little bit at home, do a bit of specific training, and we are off to Barcelona very soon for the Tour de France.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Tour de Suisse 2026 stage 5 results:<\/p>\n
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1. Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 26:38<\/p>\n
2. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) +7\u2033<\/p>\n
3. Bart Lemmen (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1:33<\/p>\n
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Tour de Suisse 2026 final general classification after stage 5:<\/p>\n
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1. Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 15:08:43<\/p>\n
2. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +6:32<\/p>\n
3. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) +6:53<\/p>\n
6. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +7:53<\/p>\n
With his most impressive performance to date for UAE Team Emirates Gen Z, young talent Mateo Ram\u00edrez claimed second overall at the Giro d\u2019Italia Next Gen. The young Ecuadorian was only pipped to the overall title by the reigning under-23 world champion, Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe).<\/p>\n
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In his first race back since crashing out of the Tour of Sharjah in January, Ram\u00edrez was in fine form and proved Finn\u2019s closest competitor through the week. Across the eight stages, the 20-year-old produced a series of notable climbing performances before riding to fifth place in the final-day individual time trial.<\/p>\n
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At just 20 years old, Ram\u00edrez has added his name to an illustrious list that have finished on the podium at the under-23 equivalent of the Giro d\u2019Italia. In recent years, the likes of Pablo Torres, Pavel Sivakov and Jo\u00e3o Almeida have all taken podium spots in Italy before going on to achieve success in the colours of UAE Team Emirates-XRG\u2019s WorldTour squad.<\/p>\n
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In the end, Finn was too strong to stop in the leader\u2019s jersey, but Ram\u00edrez headed up a fine display for the UAE Team Emirates Gen Z squad, making his strongest showing on the stage 6 summit finish to Monte Livata. That outing formed the bedrock to his runner-up spot in the general classification.<\/p>\n
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Ram\u00edrez: \u201cI\u2019m very happy with this result. I had a complicated start to the season after a crash and a long recovery period but I\u2019ve come back at a good level and where I want to be. I would have liked to have done a better time trial \u2013 nowadays you need to be a really complete rider \u2013 and the TT is somewhere I can improve. But overall I\u2019m very pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Giro d\u2019Italia Next Gen final general classification:<\/p>\n
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1. Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies) 25:53:43<\/p>\n
2. Mateo Ram\u00edrez (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z) +2:10<\/p>\n
3. Henrique Bravo (Soudal Quick-Step Devo Team) +2:35<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the punishing slopes of Villars-sur-Ollon, Tadej Poga\u010dar rode to his third stage win of the week in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-751980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751980","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=751980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}