UAE Team Emirates-XRG to close out WorldTour season in China

The UCI WorldTour season will draw to a close next week in China, with the Tour of Guangxi rounding out the campaign. In anticipation of the seventh edition, UAE Team Emirates-XRG is pleased to present its lineup, including the welcome return of Marc Soler.

Soler, out with injury since the Giro d’Italia in May, will be making his debut in the Tour of Guangxi, as will his teammate Florian Vermeersch. The pair will be joined in China by a former stage winner, Sebastián Molano.

The Colombian sprinter will have plenty of chances to add to his tally, with a succession of flat stages presenting ample terrain to pit the world’s best against one another. At Molano’s disposal will be his trusty lead-out man, Rui Oliveira, who recently piloted Molano to a terrific stage victory at the CRO Race.

For Molano, it will be his final race in UAE Team Emirates-XRG colours. After eight seasons and 20 victories to date, the Colombian will depart for pastures new in the off-season. This only adds to the motivation for the sprinter to end his season in style.

Molano: “It’s been an incredible journey over the past 8 years with the team with so many shared memories. Above all, I’m lucky to have made many friends here.

“I’m hoping to end the year on a high note here in Guangxi. There are many sprint opportunities and we also have a strong team for the GC, so we go in full of options and aim to do our best.”

Rounding out the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad in China will be last year’s third-place finisher, Jhonatan Narváez, Rune Herregodts, and Julius Johansen.

Narváez has looked sharp in the recent Italian Classics and will hope to carry this form into the final race of the season. Offering guidance to the Ecuadorian and his teammates at the Tour of Guangxi will be Sports Directors Aner Moreno and Simone Pedrazzini.

The team will look to add to its three stage victories to date, taken by Fernando Gaviria and Molano in 2019 and 2023, respectively.

The 2026 Tour of Guangxi gets underway on Tuesday, 13 October in Chongzuo. Sitting on the Sino-Vietnamese border, Chongzuo is home to over two million residents and will host the first two stages of this year’s race.

Stage 1 is the flattest of the entire race, covering less than 1000m of climbing over a 149.2km-long parcours. The start and finish of this stage are located just two streets apart, in the middle of Chongzuo’s urban area. Stage 2, meanwhile, will head northwest for a finish in Jingxi.

There is a single category two climb in stage 2, but 8km at 4% should provide little for the sprinters to worry about. Expect another bunch finish on Wednesday.

At 211.3km in length, stage 3 between Jingxi and Bama is by far the longest of the race, which is perhaps fitting for the ‘Hometown of Longevity’. The Bama Autonomous County is renowned for its number of residents who live beyond the age of 100.

Whether the sprinters get their chance again on stage 3 will be dictated by the peloton. The roads in the final 75km of racing are undulating, offering the possibility for some teams to put the squeeze on their rivals.

In the following day’s stage 4 between Bama and Tian’e, there is the most amount of elevation gain of any stage in this year’s Tour of Guangxi. Two categorised climbs fall in the middle of the day, before an uncategorised 2km-long climb at 5% marks the final challenge, topping out 25km from the finish.

For the penultimate stage, the peloton will be in the saddle for a little over 170km from Jinchengjiang to Yizhou. It will offer one last chance for the sprinters, with little to stand in their way thanks to a pan-flat approach for the final 50km.

The final stage of this year’s race is identical to stage 5 of last year, with the race organisers opting for a grandstand finish to the seventh edition. The Nongla Scenic Spot is where the winner of the Tour of Guangxi will ultimately be decided, coming at the end of a 4.3km-long climb that averages 7%.

This steep climb has long been the landmark feature of the Tour of Guangxi. Its 15% slopes and dramatic scenery offer a fitting way for the eventual race winner to announce himself as the champion-in-waiting.

Expect this year’s general classification battle to come right down to the wire, after some 1,041km of racing and six stages. The sprinters will have plenty of moments to butt heads throughout the week, but it will be on the Nongla ascent that the patient climbers will finally have their chance.