Published February 22, 2026 05:18PM
When Tadej Pogačar indicated he would miss this year’s UAE Tour, some of his team’s sponsors likely panicked at the news.
After all, the UAE Emirates-XRG squad is bankrolled by the same country which hosts the race, creating a team-event combo which isn’t often seen in the sport.
The UAE outfit had taken overall victory three times out of the past five years. Winning on what is effectively home ground is one of its biggest goals of the early season.
Pogačar, though, wanted a new approach in 2026. The world champion won two stages plus the overall last time around but a buildup towards the 2025 Tour crammed with competition and training camps left him decidedly short of his usual sparkle in the second half of July.
Amid mutterings of burnout and early retirement, something had to change this year. The UAE Tour was it.
Step up Isaac del Toro, who assumed Pogačar’s status as team leader for the event and hit the ground running.
A record-breaking contract
Isaac Del Toro and his team celebrate his UAE Tour win on February 22, 2026 in Abu Dhabi (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
The Mexican rider is still only 22 years of age, five years younger than his team captain. However he made a career breakthrough in recent days, romping to stage 1 success last Monday, a mountaintop stage victory on Saturday and then sealing the overall victory the following day.
He rolled in as part of the main bunch on Sunday in a sprint won by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).
In doing so he ended the seven day event 20 seconds clear of Antonio Tiberi, the rider who beat Del Toro to win stage 3 and who had held the race lead in the days afterwards.
Del Toro was determined to fight back and fired off repeated accelerations on Saturday’s stage to Jebel Hafeet. That finally broke Tiberi, securing an overall victory for Del Toro that he has recognized as a career breakthrough.
“It’s really special, honestly, to win my first WorldTour stage race,” he said on Sunday. “I’m super happy with the guys, they helped me out tremendously. I can’t be more proud about this.”
The success was the 24th of his career and marks another step towards possible domination of the sport.
Del Toro has been commanding attention ever since he won the Tour de l’Avenir in 2023. That secured the attention of the UAE Emirates-XRG squad, who offered him a three year contract.
Months later, on what was only his second day as a pro rider, he won a stage of the Santos Tour Down Under. That staggering result prompted the team to rip up that initial deal and instead hand him a record-breaking contract running until the end of 2029.
In the two years since then a total of 23 wins have followed, including a staggering 18 last season.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. While Del Toro took a stage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia, his race campaign underlined the highs and lows, the triumphs and travails, of the sport.
Winning into Bormio on stage 17 was a major boost and strengthened his grip on the race leader’s jersey. However a tactical disaster three days later saw Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) outmaneuver Del Toro and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) on the Colle delle Finestre and seize the overall win.
Yates was riding well that day but the UAE and EF Education teams made a complete bags of their strategy. Del Toro and Carapaz marked each other out of it, and that was all the Briton needed to win.
‘It’s not easy to be a leader in this team’
Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates – XRG) makes his winning move on stage 6 of the UAE Tour on February 21, 2026 (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
The UAE Tour is not the biggest race in cycling but doing what Del Toro did in the past few days should pave the way for more important success.
His Giro unravelling last spring was a big setback, both in terms of his career and also his morale. However what he did in the UAE showed how much he has progressed. When the pace went through the roof on the steep ascent of Jebel Mobrah on stage 3, Del Toro let go of rivals such as Tiberi and Remco Evenepoel and instead went out the back.
It looked like game over but he had instead paced himself perfectly. He shedded time at first, but then caught and passed rider after rider as they each went into the red.
Such a mature approach was a far call from the tactical meltdown in the Giro. It suggests that both he and his team have done some important thinking, and learning, in the months since.
“I’ll always remember this UAE Tour,” Del Toro stated on Sunday. “Yesterday at Jebel Hafeet we just followed the plan.”
He did, things worked out perfectly, and now he has won the first WorldTour stage race win of his career.
That’ll give him a big boost prior to his next races in Strade Bianche and Tirreno-Adriatico.
It also enables the team’s main sponsor to breathe a sigh of relief.
Pogačar wasn’t there, the star rider was missing, but the squad came out best anyway.
“It’s not easy to be a leader in this team because everyone is so good,” Del Toro said Sunday. “It’s a big satisfaction to win our team’s home race.”