UAE Team Emirates-XRG announces squad for the 75th Tour of Austria

All eyes will not only be on the Tour de France this week, but also on the Tour of Austria, where UAE Team Emirates-XRG is set to field an ambitious squad. Raced for five days between Wednesday, 8 July, and Sunday, 12 July, this year’s edition will be the 75th instalment of the long-running UCI stage race.

The Tour of Austria will evoke fantastic memories for the Emirati squad, who have won each of the last two editions through Diego Ulissi (2024) and Isaac del Toro (2025). There had been stage wins for Ulissi and Pascal Ackermann in the past, but last year’s race saw UAE Team Emirates-XRG excel.

As Del Toro cantered to overall victory, the team won four out of the race’s five stages and will surely head into this year’s race brimming with motivation.

Leading the team from behind the wheel will be Sports Directors Tomas Gil and Manuele Mori. Their six-man squad will be led by recent Grand Tour debutants, Jan Christen and António Morgado, who both recently won the road and time trial national championships in Switzerland and Portugal, respectively.

Making their debuts in their national champions’ jerseys, Christen and Morgado will take aim at a number of rolling stages that will make up this year’s route. There, the pair will be joined by Igor Arrieta, Vegard Stake Laengen, Kevin Vermaerke, and Gen Z talent Matteo Vanden Wijngaert.

As for the route itself, the 75th Tour of Austria will begin in Graz on Wednesday, 8 July. The first four road stages, finishing in Gamlitz, Franz Josef Höh, St.Johann-Alpendorf and Steyr, all sit at around 180km long and with roughly 2,500m of climbing. This is ample terrain for attacking riding and entertaining racing.

Stage 2 from Bad Kleinkirchheim to Franz Josef Höh provides the race’s only true summit finish, with a challenging two-pronged climb to decide the day’s winner. The last climb is split into two.

The first 9.2km of the ascent average 8.6%, before the riders head downhill for 2km and are then met by the final rise up to the finish. That final rise stretches out for 8.1km at 6.2%, ensuring that this day will go a long way to deciding the final general classification.

There are challenges elsewhere, though, with stage 3’s punchy finish looking particularly enticing. The last 2.7km of the stage to St.Johann-Alpendorf average 6.3%, favouring the puncheurs of the bunch.

As for the sprinters, only stage 5 of the Tour of Austria looks nailed on to be a bunch finish. There, in Wien Burgtheater, the overall winner of the 75th edition will be crowned.