Brandon McNulty ready to defend his CRO Race title for UAE Team Emirates-XRG

A little over a week on from winning the Sköda Tour de Luxembourg, Brandon McNulty will lead UAE Team Emirates-XRG into the six-day CRO Race. The American is the defending champion of the Croatian stage race, which is celebrating its tenth edition this time round.

A solo stage victory teed up his title tilt last year, and McNulty will head into the CRO Race on a wave of good form. The 27-year-old has won the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal and the Sköda Tour de Luxembourg in recent weeks, taking UAE Team Emirates-XRG to 85 and 86 victories for the season, respectively, a historic achievement for the Emirati squad.

In Croatia, McNulty will be joined by four WorldTour colleagues in Rune Herregodts, Julius Johansen, Rui Oliveira and Tim Wellens, whilst Abdulla Jasim Al-Ali and Mateo Pablo Ramírez will bring enthusiasm from the Gen Z ranks.

Ramírez, hailing from Ecuador, recently finished sixth at the Tour de l’Avenir before taking a top 10 finish in the U23 World Championships Road Race. This will be the 19-year-old’s first stage race outing for UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

Hoping to oversee a title defence for McNulty and his teammates, Sports Directors Andrej Hauptman and Giacomo Notari will be in the lead for UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Looking ahead to his final race of the 2025 campaign, McNulty spoke of his excitement to return to Croatia.

McNulty: “It’s always a pleasure to come back to the CRO Race. Last year was a big moment for me to win here, and I have great memories of the fans and the atmosphere here. The parcours is never straightforward — the weather, the climbs, and the technical finishes make it a race where you really have to stay focused every day. Our team is coming in with strong motivation.

“Personally, I’ve had some good wins over the past weeks and the team in general is flying, so we will be ready to take opportunities when they come. It’s my last race of the year and I hope to go out on a high.”

As described by McNulty, the route of the CRO Race rarely delivers predictable racing, and this year looks to be no different. Beginning in Split on Tuesday, 30 September, the six-day CRO Race contains stages for sprinters, opportunists and climbers alike.

Stages 1, 2 and 3 will take the peloton through Sinj, Biograd na Moru, Novalja, Gospić and Rijeka, with each day lending itself to attacking racing. None of the three stages has over 2,000m of climbing – with stage 2 particularly short and flat – but each leaves the door open to the Classics specialists coming to the fore.

With 3,869m of climbing across 190.7km, stage 4 is certainly the toughest day of the race, with a 2km uphill kick to the line in Labin. The final Cat 1 climb stands at 11.1% for 3.3km, and tops out with a little over 20km to ride.

The penultimate stage will run from Karlovac to Sveta Nedelja on another undulating parcours, before the sixth and final stage will take place on Sunday, 5 October. With just 636m of climbing, stage 6 is as flat as they come, teeing up a surefire sprint to bring the race to a close in the country’s capital, Zagreb.