Tim Wellens to make return for UAE Team Emirates-XRG ahead of the Ardennes

With the cobbled Classics in the rearview mirror, time has come to turn focus towards the Ardennes, but not before the usual transitional affair of De Brabantse Pijl. Sitting in between Paris-Roubaix and the Ardennes trio of the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, ‘The Brabant Arrow’ will take place on Friday, 17 April.

Here, UAE Team Emirates-XRG will line up with a number of options to take the race to its opponents, including the returning Tim Wellens.

The Belgian national champion has been out of action since crashing out of Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, suffering a fractured collarbone in the process. After successful surgery, the 34-year-old was soon back on the indoor trainer and eyeing up a return to racing ahead of the Ardennes.

With a block of training on the road, Wellens is ready to pin a number on again, and will be back to De Brabantse Pijl, a race he won in 2018.

Wellens: “I’m looking forward to my first race back after the crash – it took quite a long time before I was back. I was 3 weeks off the road in total and lost quite a bit of condition. I’ve been able to build up some form but feel like I’m still far from my best shape.

“I have great memories from Brabantse Pijl since my victory in 2018 – it’s a race that suits me. I’m also very happy to show my national jersey again in Belgium. I won’t have the best legs but I’ll do my best to work for the team as I build up for the goals ahead.”

At De Brabantse Pijl, he will be joined by teammate Benoît Cosnefroy, himself a former winner of this race two years ago. The Frenchman has settled into life at UAE Team Emirates-XRG and should come into his own in these hilly Classics.

With Andrej Hauptman as the Sports Director in the team car, the Emirati squad will be rounded out by Filippo Baroncini, Mikkel Bjerg, Luca Giaimi, Florian Vermeersch and Gen Z rider, Matteo Vanden Wijngaert.

Also known as La Flèche Brabançonne, this year will mark the 66th edition of this long-running Belgian semi-Classic, and the route remains identical to recent years. De Brabantse Pijl begins in Beersel and ends some 162.6km later in Overijse, but not before 21 climbs take their toll on the riders of the peloton.

Four of these climbs lay on a local circuit of 20km around Overijse, which will be tackled on three occasions before the race draws to a close along the Brusselsesteenweg. These climbs are the Hertstraat, Moskesstraat, Holstheide, and the S-Bend (1.3km at 4.2%). The S-bend is the final climb on the route and ends with 200m of the race to go on the final lap.

In recent years, we have often seen the race come down to a handful of the strongest riders, with the winner proving the rider with the biggest kick in that last drag to the finish line.

Two days after De Brabantse Pijl, the Ardennes Classics kick off in earnest with the Amstel Gold Race, where Sports Directors Andrej Hauptman and Marco Marzano will guide UAE Team Emirates-XRG at the WorldTour one-day race.

This race was won by the Emirati squad just three years ago, with Tadej Pogačar emerging as the victor that time out. For this Sunday’s edition, there will be no Pogačar for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, but a whole host of riders who will appear at home on the punchy climbs of the Netherlands.

Continuing on from De Brabantse Pijl will be Baroncini, Bjerg, Cosnefroy, Giaimi, and Wellens, with reinforcements coming in the shape of Felix Großschartner, and Pavel Sivakov.

Together, the team will hope to race on the offensive and look to continue the squad’s recent momentum, which has seen wins from Pogačar at the Tour of Flanders, the Gen Z talents at the UAE National Championships, and Julius Johansen at O Gran Camiño. UAE Team Emirates-XRG now sits on 19 wins for the 2026 campaign.

At the Amstel Gold Race, the route will prove almost a copy of last year’s, minus one small climb. That leaves 33 climbs along the 257.2km route, including three ascents of the Cauberg climb that has come to define the race in recent times.

The 60th edition of the Amstel Gold Race will begin in Maastricht and head north to the first climb of the day, the Maasberg. At such a length, of course, the attritional nature of the Amstel Gold Race will take its toll as the day wears on, making the final ascents particularly challenging for the riders.

Within the final 50km of racing, there falls the back-to-back ascents of the Gulperberg, Kruisberg, Eyserbosweg, and Fromberg, before the steep ramps of the Keutenberg. These all precede the second and penultimate climb of the Cauberg, which stands at the usual 7% average gradient for 900m.

This penultimate ascent will take the race over the finish line for the last time before the winner of this year’s race is crowned.

Totalling just under 20km, the final lap of the race includes the Geulhemmerberg (900m at 6.3%), the Kuitenbergweg, the Bemelerberg, and finally, the last ascent of the Cauberg. From the top of the Cauberg to the finish line is 1.7km, offering the tantalising opportunity for riders to bridge back to the front of the race should they not have kept the pace on the climb.

All in, the route offers unpredictable racing, but usually the ability to reward the strongest rider on the day, marking an exciting start to the Ardennes Classics.