Key Takeaways: What We Learned From the UAE Tour & Volta ao Algarve

Breaking down what we learned on the final weekend of multiple stage races where the early-season form of the sport's top GC stars were on display

With the Spring Classics preparing to take over the minds and hearts of the cycling world with Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad kicking off the Flemish racing season, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the most interesting moments hidden in the packed schedule of stage racing over last weekend, with the UAE Tour, Volta ao Algarve, Ruta del Sol, and Tour des Alpes-Maritimes all featuring a few intriguing storylines and punchy racing.

Below is a collection of key highlights and takeaways from the final weekend of the UAE Tour, where Tadej Pogačar dominated while playing with his prey en route to a third career overall victory (not to mention the world’s best sprinter facing off in high-speed battles) and the Volta ao Algarve, where some of the world’s top stage racers clashed, with Jonas Vingegaard coming from behind with an impressive time trial performance to take the overall win. With the sport’s top rider, Tadej Pogačar, and his only real Tour de France rival, Jonas Vingegaard, both winning, we are heading toward yet another clash of the sport’s top two stage racers at this summer’s Tour de France.

UAE Tour

Final GC Top Five:
1) Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) +0
2) Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) at 1'14"
3) Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) at 1'19"
4) Iván Romeo (Movistar) +1’26
5) Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) +2’10

Catch Up:
Stages 1 & 2
Stages 3-5
Stage 6
300m: Coming into the curving final few hundred meters of the stage, both Tim Merlier and Jonathan Milan are isolated from their lead-outs and buried out of position in the bunch.

150m: However, Merlier, due to an absurd amount of power and deft handling skills, steps out into the wind and rides to the front before using the increased speed he has built up to slingshot his own sprint. This means that by the time he passes the leaders, he is moving fast enough that he is able to immediately build up a significant advantage before they can respond.

100m-Finish: The combination of Merlier being at full speed while the others are just building up and his raw power allows him to hold on for a blow-out win while Milan scrambles for the final podium spot against Matteo Malucelli.

Stage Top Three:
1) Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) +0
2) Matteo Malucelli (XDS Astana Team) +0
3) Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) +0

Stage 7
126km.1: The peloton is broken up in strong crosswinds early on the final stage. Tadej Pogačar gets as close as we’ve seen all week of missing the front group. However, he is able to use his immense power to get safely into the rotation, and, as the pace stays on the front, he rides clear with the leaders as they continue to distance the rest of the peloton.

9.6km: With only two UAE teammates left with him, Pogačar has limited support to work with when they hit the start of the final climb of Jebel Jais. Despite this, he immediately sends Florian Vermeersch to the front to set a blistering pace that has him holding close to 600 watts for as long as possible. This strategy, where UAE forces their competition to hold an absurd number of watts on climbs, is designed to place them into the red while Pogačar sits in zone 2 to soften them up for an attack.

7.8km: When his final teammate, Rune Herregodts, pulls off, Pogačar doesn’t hesitate to attack, even with close to 8kms remaining on the climb, knowing that if he waits, he will only let his rivals recover, which would undo the work his teammates just dropped themselves performing and would allow them to start rolling attacks on him.

7.7km: Giulio Ciccone and Oscar Onley initially follow Pogačar’s move, but the power required quickly proves too much, and the race leader quickly rides away.

2.6km: Pogačar pushes and rides well below his limit as he builds up and holds a 40+ second lead. Behind, Pello Bilbao is rewarded for his conservative riding as his chase group catches Onley and Ciccone.

Finish: Pogačar holds on for a stage win, sealing his third career overall title at the race. Ciccone and Bilbao finish just over 30 seconds later, rounding out the overall podium.

Stage Top Three
1) Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) +0
2) Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) at 32"
3) Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) at 35"

Key Takeaways

• Tadej Pogačar’s Ultra-Aggressive Racing Speaks to His Confidence & Form: It may not have been against the top GC competition, but Tadej Pogačar’s attack and ride to build his advantage on the final stage was one of the most impressive early-season performances I’ve ever seen from a top GC contender.

  • His 32-second stage victory was the second-largest margin of victory on the climb to Jabel Hafeet, with the biggest oddly being Adam Yates’ over Pogačar back in 2020 with a 1’03 gap (little did we know).

    • The fact that he effortlessly made front crosswind splits on every occasion and, after being left with thinned-down support on the final stage, felt comfortable having his depleted support riders wind up the pace to launch a completely unnecessary long-range attack, all while riding a heavy, aero bike (likely to appease his local sponsors, who also own the Colnago bike brand), tells us that Pogačar must be filled with extreme confidence about his fitness heading into the Spring Classics.

      • Additionally, it likely tells us that Pogačar was trying to make the race as hard as possible for himself to prepare for those Spring Classics. He and his UAE team have realized that when you are the strongest rider in a race, going on the front foot with aggressive tactics actually minimizes the chances of losing, as you don’t allow your competition to hang around and put you in a difficult situation late in the race.

• Jonathan Milan & Tim Merlier Are Currently the Sport’s Top Two Sprinters: After the first major sprint battle of 2025, it is clear that Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier are the top two sprinters in the world when the course requires the highest possible speed and power.

  • Their ability to generate massive, unmatched raw power is the reason for this, and it does appear that Milan has improved his positioning (even if he still gets caught out like on Stage 6). However, it remains to be seen if they can continue to win at this rate later in the year when courses favor finesse and fitness more than pure speed, and riders like Jasper Philipsen can leverage their superior versatility.

  • A strange thing about Merlier’s rise to the top of the sprinting class is that despite being 32 years-old, he hasn’t been given many recent chances to show his form in Grand Tours. Over the past three seasons, he has only raced two Grand Tours, and hasn’t been on the startline at the Tour de France since 2021.

Volta ao Algarve

Final Overall GC Top Three:
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) +0
2) João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) +15
3) Laurens De Plus (INEOS Grenadiers) +24

Catch Up:
Stages 1-3
Stage 4
400m: Coming into the sprint, Wout van Aert is buried deep in the field with no team support, while Biniam Girmay is being guided up front by an Intermarche teammate.

200m: As he attempts to work his way up the bunch on the left-hand side of the road, Van Aert is forced to brake when Cofidis’ Milan Fretin comes around and nearly swerves into his wheel.

Finish: Fretin, able to hold his speed, crosses the line in first for a big win for both him and his team, while Van Aert is buried back in 7th after not being able to recover from being forced to scrub his speed.

Stage Top Three:
1) Milan Fretin (Cofidis) +0
2) Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +0
3) Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers) +0

Stage 5
Jonas Vingegaard vs Primož Roglič: On the flat opening section of the 19.6km-long time trial, Visma’s Jonas Vingegaard, who came into the stage 20-seconds behind race leader Jan Christen, and 16 seconds behind second-place João Almeida, rips through the opening time checks, only ceding 16 seconds to his teammate Wout van Aert, who weighs roughly 20kgs more, on terrain that favors raw power over watts per kilogram. Meanwhile, Primož Roglič, who started the day 3 seconds behind Vingegaard, is immediately off the pace.

Finish: On the steep (9% avg) final 2.5 kilometers, Vingegaard, who declines a bike change, unlike his teammate Wout van Aert, rips up the climb to take the stage win by 11 seconds over Van Aert, 30 seconds over Almeida and 1’17 over Christen.

Stage Filtered Results:
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) +0
2) Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) +11
3) Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious) +14
6) João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) +30
12) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +49

Key Takeaways

• Jonas Vingegaard’s Form: Combined with the fact that he was distanced by João Almeida on the race’s only summit finish and wasn’t able to match him on the uphill section of the TT, it is clear that Vingegaard isn’t anywhere near his peak climbing form and won the race with his superior high-speed time trialing.

  • Times on Final Climb (2.5km)
    João Almeida: 7’07
    Primož Roglič: 7’18
    Jonas Vingegaard: 7’20
    Wout van Aert: 7’48

    • Being able to win a hilly five-stage race while being outclimbed at every turn is hugely impressive, and is a testament to just how much work Vingegaard has likely put in on the TT bike over the off-season. And, with his main goal, the Tour de France, still being months away, there is no rush for Vingegaard to get into top form at the moment.

      • However, it was hard to ignore the contrast between the two riders over the weekend, and, with Pogačar coming into the season with his all-destroying current form, it becomes difficult imagining how and where Vingegaard will find the edge that could see him take back his Tour de France title (perhaps the secret is in the tiny 150mm crank arms he was running at Algarve).

• João Almeida & UAE’s Focus: Just a few weeks after losing the race lead at the Volta Valenciana, João Almeida fell down the GC standings on Sunday after a disappointing time trial and kept his four-year GC losing streak alive. While there wasn’t much he could have done to stop Pogačar, his performance throughout the week still raised valid questions about his future as a consistent stage race winner.

  • For example, his (split-second) decision to gift the opening stage to his teammate Jan Christen and cede a 4-second bonus in the process ended up not being the difference between winning and losing, but if Almeida had put in a better final day ride, it very well could have.

    • While his young teammate will appreciate this gesture, and it was certainly the right decision for intra-team politics, it speaks to a continued lack of defined focus and hierarchy within UAE during stage races where Pogačar isn’t present.

      • If they were really laser-focused on the overall win (and they should have been, given Almeida’s lack of recent GC wins), they would have come in with well-defined plans and expectations about how Almeida would chase every possible bonus second on every stage.

Ruta del Sol (Vuelta a Andalucía)

Final GC Top Three:
1) Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) +0
2) Clément Berthet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) +23
3) Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) +26

Stages 1- 3
Stage 4
Stage Top Three
1) Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma) +0
2) Alan Jousseaume (TotalEnergies) +9
3) Connor Swift (INEOS Grenadiers) +9

Stage 5
Stage Top Three:
1) Jon Barrenetxea (Movistar Team) +0
2) Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) +0
3) Johannes Staune-Mittet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +2

• After sealing the overall win by ensuring he was in front of any attacking action between Tim Pidcock and Maxim van Gils on Stages 1 and 2, Pavel Sivakov deployed his UAE team to control the race over the final few stages. This allowed breakaways to win both days, with young Basque riders, one from the ascendant Equipo Kern Pharma, and rejuvenated Movistar, flashing an impressive mix of strength and tactical skill as they grabbed stage wins.

Top Themes From the Weekend:

1) Like 2024, there are still only two GC contenders head and shoulders above the rest of the sport (Vingegaard and Pogacar).

• Remco Evenepoel is behind schedule due to injuries and recovery, and Roglič isn’t improving (and might even be declining), which means he is being left behind by the two younger riders who continue to get better every year.

2) Visma-Lease a Bike salvaged a stage and GC win, but it is hard not to notice that they are increasingly relying on a few top riders for results: In this case, the riders were Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert, and it is notable that even in the depths of early season racing, Vingegaard is responsible for all of their European victories.

• At the same time, large portions of their key support pieces from years past have struggled to impress, and, with their core aging, they run the risk of falling behind supercharged rivals like UAE.

• While Visma has put resources into recruiting talented young riders, they aren’t making major impacts on the biggest stage like UAE’s young recruits.

  • For example, UAE has four riders under the age of 23, Juan Ayuso, Isaac del Toro, Jan Christen, and António Morgado, who have already racked up a total of 21 pro wins, along with a few significant results and contributions on the sport’s biggest stage. Meanwhile, Visma has somewhat struggled to get their young recruits to a place where they can replace the contributions of their old guard, with their crop of riders under 23 years old racking up a total of three races so far in their young careers.

3) XDS-Astana continues to rack up UCI points: Due to being in the mix at seemingly every race, and racking up multiple wins, with Christian Scaroni winning the Classic Var and Tour des Alpes-Maritimes over the weekend, the worst team of 2024 is currently sitting in second place, only behind UAE, in the UCI Points Rankings. This haul has seen them cut their points deficit to Cofidis, the last-ranked team in the Promotion/Relegation standings, to 3,365 points, down from 4,719.

• If they kept up their current pace of regaining 1,354 points on Cofidis in just two months, they would easily avoid relegation and salvage their WorldTour spot for the next three seasons. However, the tactics they used to amass these early points (stacking the top ten, prioritizing early-season races, and poaching points from them) will become less and less effective as the season progresses.

  • But, even if they don’t make the promotion cut for the 2026-2029 window, chasing points in 2025 is still critical since they need to finish in the top two of the second-division teams to secure automatic race invitations for the 2026 season.

    • This becomes even more important if the rumors that their deal with title-sponsor (and hopeful future team owner) XDS is only for one year and will only continue if they can secure a Tour de France invitation in future years are true.