UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma | Lease a Bike's rivalry over the past six years have seen the two teams dominate the UCI rankings as Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard's battles impacting much more than the riders themselves. But over the past 18 months, other teams have been trying to butt in.
Red Bull - BORA Hansgrohe and Lidl-Trek are among the leading teams who have made no secret of their intentions to break the two teams' monopoly on cycling's top tables.
In fact, Red Bull did just that on paper as they finished in second place ahead of Visma - while Decathlon CMA CGM and Lidl-Trek are in pursuit behind the Dutch team.
However, one key statistic has pointed towards both Visma and UAE still dominating in the place that matters - Grand Tours. Not only did both teams win a three-week race, but their fingerprints are all over all three of cycling's biggest races.
Visma | Lease a Bike celebrate the stage win
Visma and UAE take most Grand Tour stage wins
When it comes to Grand Tour stage victories, both Visma and UAE lead the lines by some distance with 14 and 13 victories respectively. Their tallies are some way ahead of the rest of the WorldTour teams - with Soudal Quick-Step the next closest with seven Grand Tour wins.
Visma bested UAE thanks to their strong Giro and Vuelta campaigns. In the Corsa Rosa, Jonas Vingegaard led the lines with five stage wins on the way to the Maglia Rosa while Sepp Kuss also won the queen stage. In a quiet Tour, many forget that Visma won the opening team time trial.
Their 2026 Grand Tour campaign saw them dominate the Vuelta as Matthew Brennan took five stage wins and Wout van Aert added two more as the team took one-third of the stages on offer.
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Pogacar leads UAE Grand Tour wins
For UAE, Tadej Pogacar unsurprisingly was responsible for several of their Grand Tour stage wins - winning five at the Tour and three at the Vuelta before his season-ending crash. Their other marquee victory came at the Tour with Isaac del Toro.
At the Giro, the Emirati squad had Jhonatan Narvaez to thank for a successful campaign as he took three stage wins as well as Igor Arrieta's breakout victory.
Soudal are in third place with seven stage wins. Elsewhere, new WorldTour team Uno-X Mobility took four wins including at least one in all three races. Despite impressive seasons, Lidl-Trek and Red Bull took two stage wins and rank in eighth and ninth.
Gavin QuinnCycling Journalist
Gavin Quinn is a cycling journalist and ultra-distance cyclist with a BA in Journalism from Dublin City University. Formerly the Press & Communications Officer for Cycling Ireland, Gavin has worked inside the national team at the World Championships and has reported for the Irish Mirror, Mirror UK, and The42.
His expertise is backed by elite-level access, having interviewed stars like Sam Bennett and Ben Healy, as well as immense personal endurance. In 2025, he completed a 12,000km solo cycle from Ireland to Vietnam, following a 4,600km tour across Europe. From the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix to the gradients of the Tourmalet, Gavin’s writing focuses on the "romance and brutality" of the sport. Having visited 50+ countries, he brings a global, cultural perspective to his coverage of the pro peloton for CyclingUpToDate.
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- guillaume martin is wuite a surprise as a gc rider.Ketterechts02-11-2026
- Who cares what Bruyneel thinks. He and his best mate Lance, the biggest fraud in the history of sport, have no place commenting on anything but how to lie and cheat!whit2pet02-11-2026
- Eeesh!Lozza02-11-2026
- bravo! a rider likes jonas needs motivation and he needs to believe in being able to reach goals. he - like anybody else in the world - doesn't believe that he can win the tdf with pogi present. and what's it worth for when pogi is not there? second class victory only. he has checked all three grand tours, so what is left if not retire? the classics! go for it, jonas!Ketterechts02-11-2026
- i am sure that under the pretext of medical examination a lot worse has happened when they were under.abstractengineer02-11-2026
- dude, Lemond never even was in the same race as Armstrong. He throws all these aspersions on other American riders who might usurp his throne as the greatest ever American racer. He doesn't say a single thing about (foreign) dopers who he actually raced against. Biggest douchebag move ever. I used to revere that guy, now I despise him. His actions are so weird.fatsupermodel02-11-2026
- This is just stupid, You do what you are good at not what you are weak at. He has no results to speak of when he participated. Even Froome, Conatdor had very little. With Pogi there he wont win none of the classics. he is already 30+ with a few years left at the top. It takes years to get good at classics. Is that really worth the effort???abstractengineer02-11-2026
- Sure, little fella.awp02-11-2026
- You'll be the ongoing joke of 2027 with anything you post here!frieders302-11-2026
- Awwww your inside information must be from PogiFanGirl. You two daughters of different mothers?frieders302-11-2026
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