“A chance they might otherwise not have had...” - Former Red Bull DS suggests Giro d’Italia crisis could be blessing in disguise for UAE’s young talents

UAE Team Emirates - XRG’s Giro d’Italia was ripped apart before the race even reached Italy, but former Red Bull sports director Rolf Aldag believes the crisis could open a very different path for the team’s remaining young riders.

The squad’s original structure collapsed during the opening weekend in Bulgaria. Joao Almeida had already been removed from the line-up before the race, while Adam Yates, Jay Vine and Marc Soler were all forced out after the heavy Stage 2 crash on wet roads before Veliko Tarnovo.

That left only five UAE riders heading towards Italy: Jan Christen, Antonio Morgado, Igor Arrieta, Mikkel Bjerg and Jhonatan Narvaez. The team’s general classification plan has been heavily damaged, but its remaining group suddenly has more freedom than expected.

Speaking on Eurosport’s Velo Club, Robert Bengsch summed up the scale of the setback. “The entire plan has been thrown out of the window,” he said. “That was a heavy blow.”

Yates had been UAE’s promoted GC leader after Almeida’s absence, while Vine and Soler offered both climbing support and stage-winning potential. Losing all three in one crash changed the team’s race immediately. Bengsch, though, argued that UAE cannot simply dwell on what has gone. “Now they have to make something out of the situation,” he said.

That is where Aldag sees the opening. The former Red Bull DS pointed to the younger riders still in the UAE line-up, with Christen and Morgado now among those likely to receive more space than they would have expected under the original plan. “Despite all the bitterness, they have lost experienced riders, but they still have the young guns: Morgado and Christen,” Aldag said. “If you give them a chance they might otherwise not have had…”

That unfinished thought may now define UAE’s Giro. The team no longer has the same depth for a conventional GC challenge, but it does still have riders who can animate stages, chase opportunities and potentially grow into unexpected roles.

Christen is already the most obvious symbol of UAE’s reset. The Swiss rider sits high on GC after the Bulgarian opening block and has worn the white jersey on behalf of Maglia Rosa Guillermo Thomas Silva.

His position does not automatically make him a full GC leader, but it does give UAE something to defend and something to explore. Bengsch expects the focus to be more on stage opportunities than a three-week overall campaign. “He already gave some answers on Saturday with his great finale,” Bengsch said. “It has not yet translated into a position, but I expect Christen to go for stage wins, not the general classification, but stages.”

Aldag left the door slightly more open. He warned against suddenly telling a young rider that the whole race now belongs to him, but suggested that a different scenario could develop naturally.

“Maybe the general classification is not the plan, but maybe it develops that way,” Aldag said. “If you now tell him: it was never planned like this, but now you are the leader, then of course there is confusion in his head, he is a young person. But if you take it stage by stage and he is still up there after two weeks, then you do not deliberately lose time anymore.”

Morgado is another rider whose Giro could change. The Portuguese talent was also affected by the Stage 2 crash, but remains in the race and gives UAE a powerful option on the kind of medium mountain and punchy stages that appear throughout the route.

Arrieta adds another young climbing option, while Narvaez brings proven race-winning quality on harder, more technical days. Bjerg, no longer tied as tightly to controlling duties for a full-strength GC block, could also find chances in time trials or breakaways.

That does not turn UAE’s disaster into good news. The loss of Yates, Vine and Soler is a major sporting blow, and the first concern remains the recovery of the injured riders. But the team still has enough talent on the road to avoid letting this Giro become a damage-limitation exercise.

There is also a wider UAE target in the background. After taking 97 wins last season, the team had openly aimed to push towards 100 in 2026. That remains difficult, especially with the squad behind last year’s pace, but the Giro now offers a different route towards adding victories through riders who may have been locked into support roles.

For UAE, the race has become a forced rebuild. The original plan is gone, but the remaining young riders now have a chance to shape the next one.