“I think he could even win one” - Brandon McNulty's first pro boss believes the world champion can win a Grand Tour

Brandon McNulty finished ninth at the 2025 Giro d’Italia after starting the race behind Isaac del Toro and Juan Ayuso in the UAE Team Emirates – XRG hierarchy. Jonas Carney, who signed McNulty to his first professional team, believes the reigning road world champion could go considerably further with a Grand Tour built around him.

“He’s got a huge engine, great bike-handling skills and the right motivation. He’s easy for everyone in the team to get along with, too,” Carney told Wieler Revue. “I’m sure that in the right circumstances, he’s got what it takes to challenge for a Grand Tour podium. In fact, I think he could even win one.”

UAE started the 2025 Giro with Del Toro and Ayuso as their designated leaders. McNulty got some latitude to race for himself later on, as team manager Joxean Matxin Fernandez recently recalled. He finished 13 minutes and 36 seconds behind Simon Yates and nearly nine minutes off the podium. Del Toro took second. Ninth remains McNulty’s only Grand Tour top ten, and it came without the team riding for him from the start.

McNulty’s stage-race wins offer a clue as to where he could gain time. At the 2025 Tour de Pologne, he went into the final day second overall and took 46 seconds out of race leader Victor Langellotti in a 12.5-kilometre time trial to win the race. At the 2026 Tour de Suisse, he finished sixth overall while Tadej Pogacar won three stages and the title. Over three weeks, the test would be how much time McNulty could gain against the clock and how much of it he could keep in the final mountain block.

Carney first met McNulty at around 15, after LUX junior team coach Roy Knickman asked him to help. By the time Rally announced McNulty’s signing in November 2016, the 18-year-old had already won the junior world time trial title. McNulty said at the time that he wanted to learn from experienced professionals. Rally could give him a North American programme and opportunities to race in Europe.

“The first time I really spent any time with him was when I flew to Phoenix to meet him and his coach,” Carney recalled. “I had pizza with Brandon and his family, and he signed for Rally Cycling soon afterwards. I’d made the case that he’d be better off spending two or three years developing with us before making the step up to the WorldTour.”

McNulty stayed for three seasons. He finished seventh at the Tour of California in 2018 and won the Giro di Sicilia a year later before joining UAE in 2020. “He’s such a complete rider. He already was as a junior,” Carney said. “Brandon chose to take his time with his development, and looking back, that proved to be the right approach.”

A decade after that first rainbow jersey, Carney was out riding in the Colorado mountains when messages came through that McNulty had won the elite road race in Montreal. He watched the highlights as soon as he got home and wishes he’d made the trip. McNulty had attacked with 33 kilometres to go and held off Michael Matthews by 13 seconds.

McNulty was more cautious about his Grand Tour prospects when he spoke to L’Equipe in October. He felt that even making a podium would require an enormous commitment and said he was happy to support Pogacar and Del Toro. The result he wants for himself is a Tour stage to go with the ones he won at the 2023 Giro and the 2024 Vuelta.

Matxin has said McNulty will lead UAE in stage races in 2027 and that the team will discuss his Grand Tour programme in December. McNulty wants to return to the Tour, where the 2027 route gives him two shots against the clock, over 38 kilometres from Blois to Chambord and 33 kilometres around Toulouse. He has already won a Grand Tour time trial, on the opening day of the 2024 Vuelta.

UAE could give McNulty room to target either time trial while keeping him available to Pogacar in the mountains. Finding out whether Carney is right would take a different commitment from the team. At the 2025 Giro, UAE gave McNulty a chance to ride for himself once the race was under way. The next test would be giving him that chance before it starts.