UAE Team Emirates-XRG all set for the Deutschland Tour and Renewi Tour

With two important stage races on the horizon, UAE Team Emirates-XRG is ready to announce its squads for the Lidl Deutschland Tour and the Renewi Tour. Both races will begin on Wednesday, 19 August, and run through to Sunday, 23 August.

The Lidl Deutschland Tour will celebrate its 40th edition this year and see Nils Politt lead the line alongside Isaac del Toro for UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Both riders were part of the Emirati squad’s Tour de France triumph in July, and will be making their return to stage racing in Germany.

Politt is a former winner of his home race, having taken the title back in 2021 thanks to a brilliant solo stage win on the penultimate day. Indeed, it is a race with special memories for the German, with Politt’s first-ever professional victory taken on the streets of Stuttgart in the 2018 Deutschland Tour.

Bringing his years of experience with him to the 2026 Deutschland Tour, the 32-year-old is relishing another opportunity to race on home roads.

Politt: “The Deutschland Tour is always a special race for me. Racing at home in Germany, in front of the German fans, gives you extra motivation and I have some great memories from this race, including winning stages here in the past.

“The parcours this year looks interesting and should make for aggressive racing. We have a strong and versatile team, so I think there will be opportunities for us throughout the week. Personally, I’m feeling good after the Tour and I’m looking forward to getting out there, helping the team and hopefully putting on a good show for the home fans.”

UAE Team Emirates-XRG has finished on the podium three times at the Deutschland Tour, through Alexander Kristoff (third in 2021), Felix Großschartner (second in 2023) and Jhonatan Narváez (third in 2025). Stage wins, meanwhile, have been taken by both Kristoff and Narváez in recent years.

Sports Directors Fabrizio Guidi and Andrej Hauptman will guide the Emirati squad’s six-man team on this occasion, with Del Toro and Politt joined in Germany by Vegard Stake Laengen, António Morgado, and Gen Z riders Moritz Mauss and Matteo Vanden Wijngaert.

For the 40th instalment of the race, a prologue followed by four road stages will make up the route.

The race kicks off with the 2.6km prologue in Bad Orb on Wednesday afternoon, before a punchy uphill finish to Schwäbisch Hall on stage 1. This could well be the toughest stage of the entire race, standing at 215.2km in length and including some 3,298m of elevation gain along the way.

Continuing from east to west for almost 200km on stage 2, the Deutschland Tour runs from Schwäbisch Hall to Offenbach an der Queich on Friday, with the flat final 75km looking well suited to a bunch sprint.

The race heads into the hills on stage 3, with 3,069m of climbing to be dealt with between Herxheim and Bad Dürkheim. Two ascents of the Annaberg (2km at 5.9%) within the final 20km should be enough to draw out another battle between the general classification contenders.

Finally, an out-and-back route from Heilbronn will bring the race to an end in stage 4 on Sunday afternoon, with another rolling parcours on the agenda.

Meanwhile, over in Belgium, the Renewi Tour will take place primarily in the Flanders region for its 21st edition. Here, Florian Vermeersch will spearhead a strong and experienced lineup ready to continue the Emirati squad’s successful relationship with the five-day stage race.

The team won the race through Tim Wellens in 2023 and 2024, before the former Belgian champion claimed a podium spot last time out. Wellens’ successor as national champion, Rune Herregodts, will form part of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad for the coming week.

Vermeersch and Herregodts will be joined on their home roads by Igor Arrieta, Filippo Baroncini, Mikkel Bjerg, Julius Johansen, and Rui Oliveira. The latter will be brimming with confidence, having taken his first-ever professional victory at the Volta a Portugal on Sunday afternoon.

From the team car, Sports Directors Fabio Baldato and Marco Marzano will take charge.

Vermeersch, runner-up to Wellens in the general classification in 2023, is motivated to make another strong showing this time out.

Vermeersch: “The Renewi Tour is always a special race for me and one I really enjoy coming back to. I’ve had some strong results here in the past, so naturally I have a lot of good memories and motivation when I come to the start.

“It’s a race where you have to be switched on every day. The stages can look straightforward on paper, but the wind, positioning and small roads can make things difficult very quickly. The stage around Geraardsbergen will obviously be important, with the Muur and Bosberg, and the final day in Leuven can also make a difference.

“Racing at home in Belgium always gives me extra motivation. We have a strong team and I think we can be competitive. The Tour de France was an amazing experience and I’m excited to be back racing again.”

The 2026 Renewi Tour will get underway with stage 1, out and back to Diest, on Wednesday afternoon. The parcours looks ripe for a sprint finish, as does stage 2 between Blankenberge and Ardooie. That being said, the general classification hopefuls always need to stay attentive at this race, with bonus seconds up for grabs each day in the Golden KM.

Stage 3 will serve as the Queen stage of this year’s Renewi Tour, running from Celles to Geraardsbergen and including ascents of iconic Flemish climbs such as the Bosberg, Paterberg, Berg Ten Houte, and naturally, the Kapelmuur. In total, there are 17 categorised climbs before the day comes to a close, halfway up the Kapelmuur.

More rolling roads await the peloton from Riemst to Bilzen-Hoeselt on stage 4, before the race draws to a close with a technical inner-city circuit race in Leuven on the final day. Stage 5 will invoke memories of the 2021 UCI Road Race World Championships, which yielded one of the most entertaining races of the decade to date.