Yesterday, it has been virtually confirmed by Gazzetta dello Sport that Juan Ayuso will not be selected for the Vuelta a España. The young rider was present at the Tour de France with the idea of being one of the second option for UAE after leader Tadej Pogacar. However, he did not comply with the indications of the team and they have decided to punish him and not to take him as a candidate to the big one of his country. As if that were not enough, the Barcelona native contracted COVID during the French race and was forced to withdraw before the end.
We analyze this topic together with CiclismoAlDia. For the Vuelta, many wished to see Pogacar at the start after winning the Giro d'Italia and the Tour this season and achieving something historic and unparalleled. However, that will not be the case. The Slovenian himself said, in the words of Geraint Thomas, that he had to leave races to his teammates to keep everyone happy on the team.
Without Ayuso and Pogacar, UAE still has a big chance to win the overall classification, which would make them win all three grand tours this year, as Team Visma | Lease a Bike did last season. The difference would be that they would achieve it with two riders while Visma achieved it with three different riders. As of August 10, 2024, they would take Isaac del Toro, Adam Yates, Joao Almeida, Marc Soler, Pavel Sivakov, Filippo Baroncini and Brandon McNulty in the lineup. One spot remains but Ayuso will certainly not be taken to the race. The likes of Finn Fisher-Black, Rafal Majka and Jay Vine are strong contenders for this spot. But who will lead the team?
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Joao Almeida
The Portuguese is perhaps the UAE rider with the best chance of winning the Vuelta. He is having a spectacular summer. In the Tour de Suisse, in eight stages, he was six times in the top four, four times in the Top 2 and took two victories, finishing second in the final overall classification behind his teammate Adam Yates, who we will talk about next. In the Tour de France, he played a fantastic role. He ended up being Tadej Pogacar's best teammate, finishing fourth overall ahead of leaders of other squads and showing his best level as well as the traditional consistency.
Adam Yates
Very similar season to Joao Almeida, especially in the last few weeks. He won the Tour of Oman in February, taking the queen stage on the last day of the race, but an injury at the UAE Tour changed his spring plans quite a lot Like Almeida, he was in Switzerland. He managed to finish in the top two five times, taking two stages for his personal palmarès, in addition to the final overall classification. In the Tour, he finished close to his Portuguese teammate. In his case he was sixth, five minutes behind the Portuguese, but having played a mostly domestique role for the team leader.
João Almeida and Adam Yates dominated the 2024 Tour de Suisse together. @Sirotti
Isaac del Toro
The Mexican will make his debut in a grand tour at the age of 20. The winner of the Tour de l'Avenir 2023 is surprising many in his first season in the elite. He won a stage incredibly quickly after his debut with the team and also finished on the podium of the Tour Down Under.. He was fourth in the Tirreno Adriatico, behind Jonas Vingegaard, teammate Juan Ayuso and Jai Hindley. He also finished seventh in the Itzulia, won the Vuelta a Asturias with Top 3 finishes in all stages stages of the race, winning one, and 13th overall in the Tour de Suisse where he supported the two teammates above. He could very well do what both Pogacar and Ayuso did in their first season as pro riders in UAE - finish on the podium at an extremely young age in their Grand Tour debut.
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Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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- ANATOMY OF A G.O.A.T. EDDY MERCKX about TADEJ POGAČAR: Merckx: “He has revived a style of cycling that we had almost forgotten. He is now better than me.” Key statements by Merckx about Pogačar in 2026: - Acknowledging his superiority: This time, Merckx openly admitted, without any subsequent backtracking or reservations, that Pogačar had surpassed him and was now above him. This contrasts with 2024, when he quickly softened his remarks about Pogačar being faster. - The possibility of a historic triple (Giro, Tour and Vuelta): During the July Tour de France (where Pogi claimed his fifth title), Merckx stated that Pogi was the only cyclist in history capable of winning all three Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España) in a single season, provided the conditions were right and he had sufficient team support. - Lack of serious competition: Merckx emphasised that Pogačar has no real rivals in the mountains since 2024, thanks to his extraordinary climbing ability and the fact that he continues to improve despite still being under 28 (he turned 28 in autumn 2026). - Praise for his racing style: Merckx highlighted how Pogačar is bringing back the aggressive, uncompromising spirit of cycling's golden era, when races were not merely about calculated stages and tactical conservatism, but about attacking from long distances. PS: This is not "boring" ... this is called making real history, not only statistical history. Capish?PogiSloFans09-11-2026
- It’s off-season mate, I’m bored and fed up with the mediocrity of people unwilling to provoke change when they admit things aren’t right. What have you done lately to make anyone realise you won’t put up with things? What conversation, are you dictating to me which part of the incident I have to be interested in or telling me other parts are taboo? That’s what I guess the UCI would really like, let them moan, let it blow over for them pass on to the next thing, let’s keep the status quo, let’s try our best not reviewing or revealing anything about decision-making just like every time before, they’re used to it by now so we can take the risk they’ll never give us grief.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- As far as CUTD headlines go this is far from the worst. It helps if you look at it twice and realise it’s a list of descriptions from distinct events. You can’t deny the reality of being a rival if you consider the picture immediately below, frontrunner is unfortunate but I’m guessing this time it’s more a linguistic failure than a clickbaiting opportunity. Just a reminder that this is not an anglo website, for those who find it too tedious to interpret text to get the gist of things which are rarely of great importance (as opposed to eg purposely biaised DOJ extradition translations in order to achieve hidden agendas), there are plenty of anglo cycling websites google can suggest.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- Ah, finally someone willing to be a bit proactive.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- So? Do you understand the way instructions, decisions and authority work? Do you think in a football match if after a match (or even after play has gone on) a player tells the referee he did touch the ball with his hands when the referee didn’t award opponents a penalty that they will revise the score or force a replay? You really don’t get my point, it’s not against the rider but everyone here is so emotional for her they can’t get back to an issue which needs resolving for the future and the first step (or maybe second) is to try to understand how and why it happens, none of you have contributed in the least to that. All everyone is interested in is letting everyone know they agree how unjust it was, not even sure anyone thinks that could affect anything.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- Shouldn’t you be in MOUrning?Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- Maybe you don’t like it and that’s fine, we all have different sensibilities and topics that touch us, but as you try to show me, it doesn’t hurt to reflect and compare ourselves to others behaving similarly. What precisely is the difference between a sports fan interested in every detail of his/her hero’s life and a celeb fan having the same hobby? It’s far more interesting to learn and think about how and why (which) people do things than reading about what they are actually doing. And just to add another level, maybe you’ll agree we don’t use the same value system for everyone, we discriminate in an enormous number of systematic ways. For example, when is the last time you saw a discussion arguing about the achievements of two politicians to compare or for that matter two business leaders apart from the comparison of hypothetical wealth accumulated? Perhaps you misunderstood the intention?Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- I don’t think I know what’s beneath the surface but I am willing to think about it, discuss it, compare it to a known past, extrapolate to a potential future and ask/try to find out truth or even take action within my powers (boycotting something or someone is within EVERY person’s reach). If you think your attitude has more chance of changing a result, a process, a system or an institution or it just makes you feel good, keep at it but to me it looks like you’ve already given up before trying.Jumpyjohn09-11-2026
- All journalists should start asking the UCI uncomfortable questions, sending inquiries about the interpretation of the rules and the justification of the results. This is the only way to change anything.averagecyclist09-11-2026
- how else is there to look at things? we are responding to words and pictures, we are not there. your long winded replies make zero sense to anyone. pretty much everyone but you says the same thing. MS was robbed. somehow you think you're so smart to dig beneath the surface and discover something no one else, including the opposing coach and cyclist, saw. lol. you are a tool.mij09-11-2026
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Here’s our line-up for tomorrow’s #klasikoa2024 : 🇪🇸 @Igorarrieta9 🇨🇭 @janchristen04 🇮🇹 @AlessandroCovi 🇲🇽 @ISAACDELTOROx1 🇨🇭 @MarcHirschi 🇺🇸 @BrandonMcNult 🇫🇷 @PavelSivakov #UAETeamEmirates #WeAreUAE
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