Questions remain for Evenepoel, Del Toro the real deal, and a new brutal climb that’s here to stay – What we learned from the 2026 UAE Tour

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) (Image credit: Getty Images)

Yes, he almost won the Giro d’Italia at the first attempt as a 21-year-old last year, but in the Middle East Isaac Del Toro has nonetheless also continued to take steps and add strings to his bow, both as a climber and GC hopeful.

The Mexican’s incredible close to the 2025 season saw him win so much that only Tadej Pogačar and Paul Magnier ended the year with more victories. But it was punchy routes and more short and sharp clubs where he excelled.

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With Jebel Mobrah’s 15km and Jebel Hafeet’s 11km, Del Toro had the perfect test of his ability on a one-hit effort up a long climb, and he passed both tests with flying colours, pacing his effort well to finish second on the former, and scorching away from everyone on the latter with two brutal attacks.

He’s set to rejoin team leader Pogačar for some racing at the Italian Classics, Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo, but at Tirreno-Adriatico and Itzulia Basque Country, we’ll get to see how he stacks up against the likes of Primož Roglič and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) in two highly anticipated GC battles.

For the moment, in any case, Del Toro looks every bit like the long-term future of cycling’s top team, UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

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Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) (Image credit: Getty Images)

While Remco Evenepoel remains the men’s rider with the most wins so far in 2026, the UAE Tour has halted his flying momentum from early-season racing in Mallorca and Valencia. He won the time trial, but on the two climbing days, he finished 18th and 15th, behind several riders whom he “should” be beating on a regular basis.

There were explanations given, from his lack of altitude training so far this year, the air conditioning not working in his room the night before Jebel Mobrah, and the 68t chainring he pushed on the time trial then hampering his recovery before stage 3.

Even if all of these are true and negatively affected the Belgian, losing 2:04 to Tiberi on one climb and then 52 more seconds to Del Toro on the next is nowhere near where he wants to be.

It is February, enough time to stay calm for now, but Evenepoel’s next test in Catalunya in March – after which time he will have been to altitude camp – becomes even more important, as the UAE showed he was anything but ready to tackle the longest, steepest climbs.

Evenepoel has proved he is an elite stage racer, of course, winning the Vuelta a España in 2022, finishing third at his debut Tour de France and looking like the favourite to win the 2023 Giro d’Italia before COVID-19 forced him out. But it’s been a long time since he’s shown his climbing talents fully across a week, let alone three weeks, so he really has to up his game on the biggest days in the mountains.

The ascent to Jebel Mobrah (Image credit: Getty Images)

Jebel Jais and Jebel Hafeet have long been the climbing combination used to decide GC at the UAE Tour, but the decision to add in the brutal Jebel Mobrah ascent and its vicious final 6km at 12% average gradient was a great one.

Speaking to Cyclingnews, UAE Tour race director Fabrizio D’Amico wasn’t certain on how Jais and Mobrah would be used in future, possibly alternating by year. However, he did confirm that the overwhelming response had been what they’d hoped for.

It also changed the GC dynamics, with bigger gaps heading into the final Jebel Hafeet climbing day that the race had perhaps been used to. But this didn’t lessen the excitement of the final stage.

Tiberi, after his stunning win on Mobrah, had to defend 21 seconds on Del Toro, but the Mexican ultimately had too much power on the less steep and shorter climb, showing how the two climbs in combination can suit two different GC riders, making for good racing. Hopefully it will in the race route in years to come.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Sprinting dominance in cycling has been mostly shared by four men across the past five years, with Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Olav Kooij Decathlon CMA CGM) all able to beat each other on any given day.

While most sprinters would normally flock to the UAE to start their seasons, of the biggest names Milan was present at the 2026 edition, and it showed. He won all three of the bunch sprints he competed in – crashing on the first day, which was taken by Del Toro on an uphill finish – and never really looked like he was going to get passed.

For the UAE to maintain its usual status at the unofficial sprinters’ World Championships, the best fast men have to all be there fighting for the victories.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Del Toro is rightly getting a lot of the spotlight for his overall victory, but it was anything but a rout, with Antonio Tiberi giving him a real good fight right to the end, losing only by 20 seconds overall.

The day to Jebel Mobrah also brought him the biggest victory of his career so far, conquering a WorldTour mountaintop finish, and a real brutal one at that, pacing his effort with maturity to drop everyone and hold off a late charge from the Mexican.

While he couldn’t match the vicious double move Del Toro put into him on Hafeet, Tiberi chose the right course, trying to follow and really testing if he could live with the UAE man on a day he was flying. The answer was that no, he couldn’t – but Tiberi nonetheless still beat all of the remaining stacked GC field bar Plapp by more than a minute too.