Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG take aim at Milano-Sanremo

UAE Team Emirates-XRG is delighted to announce its team for the first Monument of the season, with Tadej Pogačar set to continue his tilt at one of cycling’s most-prized crowns, Milano-Sanremo. After a captivating edition in 2025, anticipation will be high to see the world champion race in Italy once more.

There, the 27-year-old will be joined by the in-form Isaac del Toro, who comes fresh from winning a memorable edition of Tirreno-Adriatico. Together, the pair will form a formidable front-line for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with Del Toro having already taken stage and overall victories at both the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico in his flying start to the year.

Ready to drop the hammer for the Emirati squad, a powerful supporting crew will be in tow for Pogačar and Del Toro in the 117th edition of Milano-Sanremo.

Jan Christen, Felix Großschartner, Brandon McNulty, Domen Novak and Florian Vermeersch round out the seven-man squad that will be led in the team cars by Sports Directors Andrej Hauptman and Marco Marzano.

Looking ahead to his sixth crack at the race known as La Classicissima di Primavera, Pogačar was in high spirits, having won his first race of the season in Strade Bianche.

Pogačar: “It’s no secret that Milano-Sanremo is a race I would love to win. I think it suits me well but also suits a lot of the other top guys. I see that as a good challenge.

“I’ve done a lot of recons on the Poggio and it’s a climb I know very well. The team was exceptional in Strade Bianche and if we can repeat that performance, anything is possible for us. The competition will be high as always but we’re used to that and we’ll do all we can for a result. I hope for a great day of racing and that we can put on a good show for the fans.”

Milano-Sanremo is a race that Pogačar has become synonymous with in recent years, thanks not to a victory (as of yet), but for his daring attacks and clear desire to win. Once known as the Sprinters’ Classic, Pogačar and others like him have turned this race into a must-see event of the year.

With their determination to make the racing selective and reduce the chances of a bunch sprint deciding the honours, the likes of Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel have ripped up the Sanremo script in recent years. In no edition was this more apparent than last year’s race, in which the pair went off the front with Filippo Ganna on the penultimate climb of the day.

It was the first time that the race-winning attack had gone clear on the Cipressa in decades, with Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad producing a vicious lead-out for a stinging Pogačar attack. Such was their speed that Pogačar went up the Cipressa in under nine minutes, something once thought impossible.

Thanks to that move, and the subsequent collaboration between Pogačar, Van der Poel and Ganna, the three came to the line on the Via Roma in Sanremo.

It was Van der Poel who triumphed that day to take his second Milano-Sanremo crown, but the three riders each played their part in a truly remarkable edition.

For Pogačar, it was the Slovenian’s fifth crack at the race, and it was arguably the closest he has come to victory. Already a winner of ten Monument Classics and five Grand Tours, Pogačar first rode Milano-Sanremo in 2020, taking 12th place on the day.

Since then, the world champion has made the race a priority and finished fifth, fourth and third in the following years. Indeed, Pogačar has finished on the third step of the podium in both of the last two years, and will be determined to stand on the top step before his career is out. Just Milano-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix are missing from Pogačar’s palmarès, of cycling’s five hallowed Monuments.

Standing at 301.6km long, including the neutral start, Milano-Sanremo is the longest outing of the WorldTour season, and this year’s route, as ever, is dictated by tradition. The usual Tre Capi climbs of the Capo Mele, Capo Cervo, and Capo Berta are followed by the Cipressa-Poggio double, before 5.4km of racing remains from the top of the Poggio to the Via Roma in Sanremo.

Neither the Cipressa nor the Poggio are climbs that would ordinarily trouble a professional rider, but coming after 275km of racing from Milan, their impact is by now legendary. The Cipressa has historically softened the legs before potential race-winning attacks are made on the Poggio. Of course, Pogačar, Ganna and Van der Poel ripped up this script last season, and all of a sudden, anything is possible in the final hour of racing.

The 117th edition of La Classicissima di Primavera will take place on Saturday, 21 March, and Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad will be ready.

Before Milano-Sanremo closes out another jam-packed week of Classics racing, a series of one-day races will take place across France, Belgium and Italy, with UAE Team Emirates-XRG ready to announce its lineups for each event.

Sticking with Italy, for the moment, the Emirati squad will send a six-man squad to Milano-Torino on Wednesday, 18 March. Here, Jan Christen and Benoît Cosnefroy will be heading up the team’s hopes of defending the title won by Isaac del Toro last season.

Christen is a former runner-up in this historic race, having taken second in a 2-3-4 finish for UAE Team Emirates in 2024. That year, the Swiss crossed the line as the first of three teammates, swiftly followed by Marc Hirschi and Diego Ulissi. Only a 30km solo effort from Alberto Bettiol denied the squad victory in a thrilling edition.

The next man across the line that day, taking fifth place, was Kevin Vermaerke of dsm-firmenich. The American is now, of course, a member of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and will be on the start line alongside Christen and Cosenfroy on Wednesday afternoon.

All three riders were part of Isaac del Toro’s winning squad at last week’s Tirreno-Adriatico, and each man played an instrumental role in the Mexican’s overall victory. With that confidence, they will take on Milano-Torino with plenty of optimism for securing a top result.

Joining the trio in Italy will be the neo-pro Adrià Pericas, and the Gen-Z talents Matvei Boldyrev and Enea Sambinello. There, Sports Director Marco Marzano will guide the squad in the long-standing Classic.

Taking the riders from Milano to Torino, the race will finish with two ascents of the challenging Superga climb, which stands at 8.9% for 5km. The first ascent will top out with just 19km to ride to the bottom of the final climb, where the successor to Del Toro will be crowned.

Meanwhile, over in Belgium, UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s block of riders for the cobbled Classics will resume their spring campaign at Danilith Nokere Koerse on Wednesday afternoon. This race will be quickly followed by the Grand Prix de Denain in France on Thursday, 19 March, before the Bredene Koksijde Classic rounds out the week’s racing in Belgium on Friday, 20 March.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG finished on the podium of Danilith Nokere Koerse in 2019 with Jasper Philipsen, but are the previous winners of both the Grand Prix de Denain and the Bredene Koksijde Classic. It was Sebastián Molano who triumphed at the former in 2023, whilst Pascal Ackermann claimed the latter in 2022.

Of the three, Friday’s Bredene Koksijde Classic is perhaps the least taxing. On a predominantly flat route, the peloton travels along France’s north coast for 203km, before arriving in a likely bunch sprint. There is only a little over 1,000m of climbing to be dealt with, but the wind and rain can always be a factor in this part of the country.

Over in Belgium, the weather is a perennial topic of conversation, but Danilith Nokere Koerse also challenges the pack with 27 sectors of cobblestones and 12 climbs along the route. The final laps around Nokere even feature the cobbled Nokereberg, which stands at 6% for 350m, and will take the riders to the finish line on its last inclusion.

Beginning in Denze and ending in Nokere, this race can oftentimes end with a sprint of a small group, but the eventual winner of this 80th edition has to pack both a fast kick and the ability to produce this power on a cobbled climb to the line.

Sandwiching the two races, the Grand Prix de Denain will take place on Thursday, 19 March.

Here, the race begins and ends in Denain, but not before a spider’s web of a route that heads north, east, south and west around the region of Hauts-de-France. At 200km in length and with barely an inch of flat road, mastering this race is no mean feat.

Below, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squads are outlined for each of the three semi-Classics across France and Belgium.

Danilith Nokere Koerse (Wednesday 18 March) (1.Pro)
– Luca Giaimi (Ita)
– Julius Johansen (Den)
– Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
– Sebastián Molano (Col)
– António Morgado (Por)
– Rui Oliveira (Por)
Sports Directors: Fabio Baldato (Ita) and Aner Moreno (Spa)

Grand Prix de Denain (Thursday 19 March) (1.Pro)
– Luca Giaimi (Ita)
– Julius Johansen (Den)
– Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
– Sebastián Molano (Col)
– António Morgado (Por)
– Rui Oliveira (Por)
– Nils Politt (Ger)
Sports Directors: Fabio Baldato (Ita) and Aner Moreno (Spa)

Bredene Koksijde Classic (Friday 20 March) (1.Pro)
– Luca Giaimi (Ita)
– Julius Johansen (Den)
– Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
– Sebastián Molano (Col)
– Rui Oliveira (Por)
– Nils Politt (Ger)
Sports Directors: Fabio Baldato (Ita) and Aner Moreno (Spa)