UAE Team Emirates

This is the page of UAE Team Emirates. The team has been active in its current form in the WorldTour peloton since 2017, following the withdrawal of the previous sponsor Lampre. It is the team centered around Tadej Pogacar. IDLProCycling.com keeps up with all the news about the team.

The history of UAE Team Emirates dates back to the 1990s, with the establishment of Lampre-Daikin. The Italian steel company was active in cycling for a long time, but ended its sponsorship in 2017. The team then had to look for a new investor and seemed to find one in the Chinese TJ Sport. However, this deal fell through, leading to the involvement of the Arabians. With funding from the Emirates airline and the national bank of the United Arab Emirates, the team was able to continue.

The entry of the Emirates into the peloton was not positively received by everyone. Yet, over the years, the team gained sympathy by focusing on young riders. UAE Team Emirates is now primarily the team of Tadej Pogacar. The young Slovenian won the Tour de France in 2020 in a fabulous manner and followed it up a year later with a victory in a monument race: Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The team has been constantly busy with reinforcements for the grand tours. For example, they signed Marc Hirschi - the revelation of the 2020 Tour - and Rafal Majka. Other big names in the team are Matteo Trentin, Diego Ulissi, and Alexander Kristoff, but also the up-and-coming talent Brandon McNulty and the Italian Davide Formolo.

In 2021, UAE Team Emirates emerged as Pogacar's team. Everything revolved around the Slovenian, from the spring classics to the Tour, and on to the autumn classics. Pogacar was consistently successful, winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour, and the Tour of Lombardy. The big question marks for the team were around the other riders. Was the team strong enough to support Pogacar? In the Tour de France, it was a close call, leading to significant investments for 2022. João Almeida was brought in as a serious additional leader, and George Bennett and Marc Soler were added as two extra top-class domestiques. For the sprints, Pascal Ackermann was signed to give Fernando Gaviria a break from the wind.  

2022 was an extremely successful year, although Pogacar failed to win the Tour de France for the third consecutive time. He was defeated by Jonas Vingegaard and a strong Jumbo-Visma. With 48 victories (including the UAE Tour, Strade Bianche, Tirreno, Tour of Slovenia, three stage wins in the Tour, and Lombardy for the second time in a row with Pogacar), the team had no cause for complaint. However, they stepped up their game in the transfer market. Adam Yates, Jay Vine, and Felix Großschartner were added to the climbing group, enabling UAE to compete with Jumbo-Visma in 2023.

In the 2023 season, Pogacar won the Tour of Flanders, Tour of Lombardy, Flèche Wallonne, and Amstel Gold Race, and - except for a fall in Liège-Bastogne-Liège - finished no one-day race he competed in outside the top five. Whether it was in February in Spain, March in Belgium, the World Championships in Scotland in August, or in Italy in October, Pogacar was always competing for prizes. However, no grand tours were won: Third in the Giro (Joao Almeida), second and third in the Tour (Pogacar and Yates), and fourth in the Vuelta (Juan Ayuso) were the results in the three-week races. In 2024, the grand tours will again be the main goal, with Pogacar aiming for the Giro-Tour double.