DISCUSSION | UAE Tour 2026 stage 1 - Strong winds, shortened stage, Milan licking his wounds and a flying Mexican.

Today marked the start of the second stage race of the 2026 WorldTour calendar: UAE Tour 2026 is on the road. Adam Yates, winner in 2020, Remco Evenepoel in 2023 and Lennert Van Eetvelt in 2024 are all present at the race, which this year does not feature a rider to defend the title won last season.

We are, of course, talking about Tadej Pogačar, a three-time winner of the race (2025, 2022 and 2021), who is starting his season later this year, on March 3, at Strade Bianche.

The stage was marked by strong winds, and the race direction, in agreement with the race commissaires, decided to shorten the distance from 144 km to just 118 km.

Silvan Dillier of Alpecin-Premier Tech was the only rider who ventured into a breakaway, but he never managed to gain much of an advantage, as the peloton kept him on a tight leash.With the shortened stage, the peloton quickly entered the final hour of racing, setting up a sprint finish to decide the day. With top favourite Milan on the ground and Pogačar absent, it was Del Toro who launched his sprint from distance and took the first victory of the week.

Classic UAE stage if we've ever seen one, without a real breakaway and without a competitive peloton until the riders hit the 10-kilometer to go mark. From there on I expected a sprint with Milan taking the win but taking into consideration his crash, it was wide open. But he may not have won, as it looked more difficult this time around than last year. Whilst Pogacar was nowhere near getting the job done last year, it seems like this time around the riders had to go to the limit earlier on the final hilltop.

Evenepoel was blocked on the right side of the road and unable to accelerate whilst Del Toro had the right position, luck and then nailed his timing. But above that, he had the legs to finish it off. And as has been the case over the last few years, showed that it is quite possible to show up to day 1 of racing with sharp legs and can obtain that racing rhythm through training. I think Evenepoel still jumps to the race lead tomorrow, however these 10 bonus seconds can go a long way for Del Toro in the fight for the GC win.

A stage with very little to write about. Everything came down to the final 10 kilometres, when the peloton decided to increase the pace. Some wide roundabouts, very high speed, the usual crashes, one of them taking Jonathan Milan out of contention for the win. The battle for positioning was fierce.

The run into the final kilometre suggested a head-to-head showdown between the sprinters still in the group, but then Isaac del Toro launched his sprint from far out. He opened a gap that allowed him to raise his arms in celebration and claim the race’s first leader’s jersey.