{"id":544063,"date":"2026-03-18T07:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544063\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:31:11","slug":"uae-unveils-its-stacked-squad-to-back-pogacar-at-san-remo-as-merckx-weighs-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544063\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE unveils its stacked squad to back Poga\u010dar at San Remo as Merckx weighs in"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UAE<\/p>\n

News & Racing<\/a><\/p>\n

Isaac del Toro will join Tadej Poga\u010dar at the season’s first Monument.<\/p>\n

\"Dane<\/p>\n

Cor Vos, Kristof Ramon<\/p>\n

As Milan-San Remo looms, UAE Team Emirates XRG has unveiled a typically loaded roster but with some fresh faces to back Tadej Poga\u010dar in the season’s first Monument, while seven-time winner Eddy Merckx has weighed in with his opinion on what the star and his team must do to finally get the elusive victory.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar’s six-rider support staff on Saturday will feature only two returning riders from last year’s roster in the form of Isaac del Toro \u2013\u00a0in flying form after winning Tirreno-Adriatico \u2013 and Domen Novak. Stalwart lieutenant Tim Wellens, who broke his collarbone at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, will miss the race for the first time since 2022, and other familiar faces have been replaced as well. One newcomer is Brandon McNulty, who flashed his one-day racing chops en route to victory at the GP Montr\u00e9al last year.<\/p>\n

This will be McNulty’s first ever San Remo, and he will be joined in making his debut by Jan Christen, one the team’s star prospects and a top-10 finisher at Strade Bianche earlier this month. We could get an update on Christen’s current form at Milano-Torino on Wednesday, where he will start among the favorites.<\/p>\n

Florian Vermeersch and Felix Gro\u00dfschartner round out the roster, which seems poised to apply serious pressure on the run-in to the late climbs of the Cipressa and the Poggio, where Poga\u010dar will surely be planning an attack as he looks to turn four straight top five finishes into a long-awaited win.<\/p>\n

On that point, the winningest rider in San Remo history has some advice. Eddy Merckx, a seven-time winner here, told La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/a> that Poga\u010dar should attack “on the Poggio,” the final climb of the race, rather the penultimate climb, the Cipressa, where Poga\u010dar made his move last year.<\/p>\n

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\n News & Racing<\/a>
\n Milan-San Remo<\/a>
\n Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a>
\n UAE Team Emirates<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News & Racing Isaac del Toro will join Tadej Poga\u010dar at the season’s first Monument. Cor Vos, Kristof…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-544063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}