Disastrous period sees no end - Like Vingegaard, Enric Mas pulls out of UAE Tour due to injury
CyclingMonday, 09 February 2026 at 12:45
Enric Mas will be forced to adjust his season start after a training crash left him with a right-hand injury. The Mallorcan rider required hospital treatment following the incident, suffering a wound that needed stitches. Movistar Team has announced he will miss the UAE Tour. The Giro d’Italia does not appear to be at risk for now.
Mas ended his season at last year's Tour de France and the surgery he had to undergo for a Thrombophlebitis saw him take months off the bike, ending his season right there. He has still not grown into form, as seen at the Challenge Mallorca, and is already dealing with yet another setback. After the crash, Mas underwent the relevant additional and diagnostic tests to rule out further complications.
According to information from his team, no other issues have been detected beyond the hand injury so far, though the rider will undergo further medical evaluations in the coming days to closely monitor his recovery.
This setback has had a direct impact on his immediate schedule. Movistar Team has confirmed that Enric Mas will not take part in the UAE Tour, which is set to start on Monday, 16th February, as the conditions are not right for him to race in the Emirates. This is another loss for the race, who has last week saw Jonas Vingegaard take the same decision.
The Navarra-based team released the situation via an official statement, reproduced in full below:
"During a training session, following a fall, Enric Mas required hospital treatment due to a wound on his right hand. The injury required stitches, and after the corresponding complementary and diagnostic tests, no other complications have been detected so far. Further medical evaluations are expected in the coming days. For this reason, his participation in the UAE Tour is ruled out".
With his UAE Tour absence confirmed, attention turns to the next targets on the Balearic rider’s calendar. If his recovery progresses and no complications arise, the next two planned races for Enric Mas are the Volta a Catalunya, starting on the 23rd of March; and the Giro d’Italia, whose Grande Partenza is set for 8th of May".
Plan for the Giro d’Italia
As it stands, Enric Mas’s season start is conditioned by this incident, pending upcoming medical checks to confirm when he can return to racing and stick to the planned spring program. From Movistar Team’s statement, the injury does not appear serious or likely to jeopardize his participation in his main early-season goal: the Giro d’Italia, where he will make his debut this year after changing his traditional schedule that featured the Tour de France before the Vuelta a España.
claps 0visitors 0
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- It's a different sort of excitement now. Back in Roger de Vlaeminck's time it was engaging to see riders race crazy distances even if very little actually happened. Now that's not interesting because everyone knows that the cyclists can do that. Milano-Sanremo has always been interesting because it's about who's got the legs after almost 300 km (unlike Sam Welsford who struggles when it goes past 180). That is why races are being adapted to that. The crazy long stages in Grand Tours are extremely rare, and the Blockhaus stage in the 2026 Giro is an exception. Personally I blame La Vuelta. There has to be a limit, or road cycling will turn into criteriums
Rafionain-Glas09-02-2026 - Tadej has not made a fuss about any of his injuries, and he's always persevered. What I was referring to is when pundits and fans overstate the effect. After the Tour, Tadej never said anything like 'I persevered despite all the pressure you put on me' (although that would be unsportsmanly so he wouldn't say it anyway) but it was the pundits who said 'Look at Visma - they couldn't even beat an injured Tadej', Personally I'm not a Pogačar fan, but that's because I find supporting the best rider boring (just like supporting Mathieu in CX or Pidcock in MTB). Which is why Pedersen's crash is so disappointing.Rafionain-Glas09-02-2026
- For sure you are not a Tadej fan, but this post is unfair. Pog has made little fuss about his few injuries. Winning Strade Bianche with fresh rashes full of thorns? He never used his knee as an excuse in the 2025 Tour (and why would he, he won). The look on his face in the last metres was joy and relief, not disappointment. But I was interested to read up on the Flemish name for LBL that you used, so thanks for that.Hills3309-02-2026
- What Mathews is complaining about is actually making cycling better, not worse. Racing just for sprint wins is boring to the average fan. Mathews seems to be complaining about having to race hard throughout the stage and having a good team in order to be a player in the finale - I don't get his argument.paule09-02-2026
- It was pretty well documented that year, as UAE were not looking for excuses, but to make the best of a worst-scenario wrist-injury situation and deliver something for their sponsors after the previous year's defeat. So Gianetti announced an in-form Adam Yates as co-leader on the eve of the Tour, as 'there are no miracles in cycling' - if you can't put in the training, you can't win. Sean Kelly basically agreed, based on his own experience.Hills3309-02-2026
- No doubt Lemond knows of which he speaks. I do believe though, and I feel modern science and sports science supports this, the years of covert "doping" were as harmful to the riders than beneficial, if not much more harmful. All of these riders were guinea pigs with all sorts of unknown medications, dosages, effects, if any, positive or negative. The "physicians " using these research drugs and off label medications were 100% experimenting on everyone and everything. They absolutely did not have any tried and true method to guarantee any result, let alone any safe and beneficial result. While there certainly was a lot of cheating, the effects of the cheating is nowhere near as simple as many of the athletes remember or imagine. There were a lot of placebo results, even if it didn't put you in a hospital. It's also a contributing factor to the current discussions around " you mean to claim a non doped rider today can go faster than a doped rider from 25 years ago?" when we never stop to think just how clapped those road side drugs practices were. There was so much experimenting with very questionable substances by people with very questionable credentials, they were as likely to kill someone as make them perform better. That didn't stop people like Armstrong and company from cheating, but it does explain some of his bafflement at how modern training, nutrition and equipment can erase his times. Poor old Lance was probably not getting the magic he was paying so much money for. He was a fool on multiple levels.Barry09-02-2026
- Still, it does seem that Tadej's injuries are always overstated. His knee swelling was just a minor injury, and can't be an excuse for getting dropped by Wout (who was still recovering from worse injuries in 2024). The same goes for his Luik-Bastonaken-Luik wrist injury. Maybe it's because he suffers so fewRafionain-Glas09-02-2026
- His criticisms of the current crop of unhuman talent racing today is ridiculous of course, but let's pause and get real for a moment shall we?: 512 wins. My God, that speaks for itself, absolutely incredible. No rider in the past several decades can touch that, outside of Merckx himself obviously. But to be fair, MVDP and Tadej aren't done either, so time will tell. Regarding his CX comments, he is just attempting to defend his brother's honor, I get it. Seeing his record beaten in the absolute, most dominant fashion has to hurt, but that's normal. At the same time however, his criticisms of MVDP are pretty weak. Last time I checked he can absolutely sprint with the best of them. Furthermore, he has zero issues dropping everyone on the 22+% Koppenberg, nevermind soloing away from the pretenders to huge time gap victories in most of his races from Roubaix to every single CX race this year and more. It leaves little doubt that the man can certainly time trial when he needs to. It's arguably a better measure of his actual ability vs creative uses of drag cheating, wind tunnel friendly, new technologies we see utilized in formal TT niche settings. I would think this fact would appeal to Rog DVMK, given the comparitively limited availability of wind tunnel tech to riders of his era. His unapologetic, outspoken, fearless defiance of the popular fanboy narratives is born of the same mentality that made him such a fantastic racer in his time. Anything less would have seen him washed out with the rest of the "also rans". He is simply frustrated by the fact that MVDP is as good as he (a classics master) and his brother Eric (a CX master) combined!urbantoreador08-02-2026
- Jews in Jewllywood just wanna make money. How about the bio-film on Melania - the Lance film will crater similarly.bike-anarkist08-02-2026
- Unusually well co-ordinated result for Belgium.Mistermaumau08-02-2026
Loading
Write a comment