“Who was the first one there to hug him? Mauro Gianetti!” - Lance Armstrong turns on UAE boss after Brandon McNulty’s rainbow triumph
Cycling
Brandon McNulty had barely become world champion before Lance Armstrong found something about the celebrations that annoyed him.
McNulty produced the biggest victory of his career in Montreal, attacking with 33 kilometres remaining and holding off a star-studded chase to take the rainbow jersey. Waiting beyond the finish was UAE Team Emirates - XRG boss Mauro Gianetti, who fought through the crowds to embrace the American after a prediction made the previous evening had come spectacularly true.
“What did you tell me yesterday?” McNulty gasped.
“I’d told him: ‘Tomorrow, you have the chance of your life’,” Gianetti recalled afterwards to The Athletic. “‘You have crazy good shape. No one’s watching you.’”
Armstrong had expected a hard race in Montreal, but even he was surprised by the kind of punishment the circuit eventually produced. “My take on the course is: a lot tougher than I expected,” he said on The Move. “This was a brutally tough course, there’s no other way to describe it. But it’s almost a different kind of toughness that actually makes it easier for the bigger, stronger riders.”
McNulty became the first American world champion since Armstrong himself
McNulty, Michael Matthews and Mathieu van der Poel were still among the strongest riders left when the race reached its decisive phase, while a number of more traditional climbers had already begun to fade.
“Like McNulty, an all-rounder; Michael Matthews, a sprinter-type; Van der Poel, a classics rider. Those climbs are so short, it’s pure brute strength in your legs, and that wore down the true climbers.”
McNulty made his move with just over 30 kilometres still to race, attacking into a lull rather than waiting for another acceleration on the Mont-Royal climb. “What we saw was that he’s also an opportunist,” Armstrong continued. “He said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to attack and see what happens.’”
The gap quickly stretched beyond a minute. It came crashing back down on the final lap as McNulty began to suffer, but the chase stalled again and the American recovered enough to reach the finish 13 seconds clear of Matthews and Van der Poel. “He’s an incredible rider,” Armstrong said.
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“Who was the first one there to hug him?”
The television pictures soon showed Gianetti celebrating with the rider he had backed so confidently the night before. “Who was the first one there to hug him? Mauro Gianetti!” Armstrong said. “Ah, come on. He says ‘I told you so, I told you so’. Give me a break, honestly.”
What irritated Armstrong was the contrast with how often McNulty has actually appeared at the Tour de France during his years with UAE.
Since joining the team in 2020, the American has ridden the Tour three times: 2021, 2022 and 2026. His second appearance included a huge ride on the road to Peyragudes, where he drove the final climb with Tadej Pogacar on his wheel before still having enough left to finish third himself.
McNulty then missed the next three editions while his own results continued to build. He won a Giro d’Italia stage in 2023 and a Vuelta a Espana time trial in 2024, before taking overall victories at the Tour de Pologne, Tour de Luxembourg and CRO Race in 2025. His victory at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal that September came on the same roads where he would return twelve months later and take the rainbow jersey.
UAE brought him back into Pogacar’s Tour squad in 2026, although illness eventually forced him out on stage 18.
Next season McNulty will return to that same packed UAE hierarchy wearing the rainbow jersey, alongside Pogacar, Isaac del Toro and a collection of riders with major ambitions of their own. Whether world champion status brings him more chances to race for himself, including at the Tour, or leaves Armstrong asking the same question again twelve months from now will depend on how UAE choose to use one of their biggest winners.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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