{"id":824764,"date":"2026-11-05T08:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T08:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/824764\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T08:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T08:24:19","slug":"uae-look-to-equal-visma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/824764\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE look to equal Visma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Poga\u010dar already dropped a few hints<\/a> about 2027 last weekend. Joxean \u201cMatxin\u201d Fernandez, his sports director, is refusing to do so for now. In a major interview with the Spanish branch of Eurosport <\/a>, he did, however, reveal the overarching ambitions of UAE Emirates-XRG<\/a> for 2027.UAE Emirates-XRG ended 2026 ranked as the number 1 team in the world\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matxin once again finished the year in the No. 1 spot in the UCI rankings, with 78 victories. \u201cUltimately, you end up in the position that many teams and cyclists would love to be in. It\u2019s a privileged and coveted position, and I understand why they\u2019re trying to strengthen their teams and surpass us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“I think what we were missing was that little obsession with Milan-San Remo; we never seemed to get it. And then, when you least expected it\u2014because this year, after the crash, things were looking grim\u2014we finally won,\u201d he says, looking back on the most memorable moment of 2026.<\/p>\n

“What am I longing for right now? “I won’t lie\u2014what Visma has achieved: winning the Giro, the Tour, and the Vuelta in the same year,” he says, referring to the team’s extremely successful 2023 season, in which they won all three Grand Tours with Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, Jonas Vingegaard, and Sepp Kuss.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

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

The UAE boss let Eurosport know his goals for 2027\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will the UAE Team go with Del Toro for the Giro and Poga\u010dar for the Tour and the Vuelta?<\/p>\n

Matxin isn’t ready to reveal exactly what that plan will look like. Rumour has it that Isaac del Toro will head to the Giro d’Italia as team leader, while Tadej Poga\u010dar is said to be aiming for his sixth Tour de France victory and his first Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cRiders like Del Toro and Poga\u010dar will be contenders for the win in every race. What I can guarantee is that we\u2019ll have a balanced team\u2014a season in which everyone gets their chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

Sepp Kuss won the Vuelta, completing the Visma triple in 2023\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I hope that dream can come true next year. I think it could happen any year, but I don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet. This year, we’ve really had some bad luck with crashes,” said Matxin. “We\u2019ve had 78 crashes. 18 of the 30 riders were injured. I think all those circumstances have made us stronger and helped us improve.”<\/p>\n

‘Anti-Poga\u010dar’ Tour de France 2027 route doesn’t sit right with UAE boss\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea that this might be an \u201canti-Poga\u010dar\u201d Tour de France doesn\u2019t quite sit right with the Spaniard. \u201cWhat the organisers have in mind\u2014and I understand their point of view\u2014is to prevent the Tour from being decided on the fourth stage. I get that. Last year, they explained to me that they had included the Tourmalet stage with the intention of keeping the Tour open, and I understood that from a different perspective,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

“I mean, if you’ve just completed a tough climb followed by a climb with a 3% gradient, no one is going to drop anyone on that 3% stretch, and whoever crosses the finish line half a minute late will end up losing three. I\u2019m no fortune-teller, but I do understand that the organisers are looking for formats that keep the race as open as possible,\u201d Matxin explains.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"del-toro-pogacar\"\/<\/p>\n

Pogacar and Del Toro on Alpe d’Huez.<\/p>\n

Matxin sees several competitors emerging<\/p>\n

Who does he see as Poga\u010dar’s biggest competitor in the Tour? \u201cI would never say who the main rival is. Because just as Seixas has stepped into the spotlight this year, someone else could do the same. And just as Jonas Vingegaard was the usual rival, he wasn\u2019t this year because of a crash. And just as Tadej didn\u2019t win the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a because of a crash.\u201d<\/p>\n

“In cycling, everything changes very quickly. Last year we were talking about Jonas being the rival, but it turned out to be Remco. We shouldn\u2019t rule out Remco. We shouldn\u2019t rule out Jonas. And of course, we shouldn\u2019t rule out Paul Seixas either, because he\u2019s made a brilliant entrance onto the scene,\u201d he says, naming them one by one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar already dropped a few hints about 2027 last weekend. Joxean \u201cMatxin\u201d Fernandez, his sports director, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,270594,133220,101,8782,12183,56,54,55,45702],"class_list":["post-824764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-joxean-fernandez-matxin","tag-latest-cycling-news","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-visma-lease-a-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}