2025 Edition
Riders UAE TEAM EMIRATES XRG
The history
The last Italian WorldTour team has been riding under an Arab flag since 2017. After the 2016 Tour de France, Lampre announced that it had been purchased by a Chinese consortium. However, the main drivers behind the continued existence of the team managed —either from the shadows or in the spotlight— by Giuseppe Saronni since his last season as a rider in 1990 are four Emirati companies, which were brought together by the team principal, Mauro Gianetti, and its president, Matar Suhail Al Yabhouni Al Dhaheri, and include the Dubai-based airline Emirates.
Lampre used to focus on the Giro d'Italia. The best overall classification achieved by one of its riders in the Tour de France was Lithuanian Raimondas Rumšas's third place in 2002. Roberto Conti became the third Italian to conquer the Alpe d'Huez (after Fausto Coppi and Gianni Bugno) and finished sixth in 1994. Damiano Cunego came in sixth in 2011. The Italian laminated steel manufacturer's blue-and-fuchsia jersey first appeared in the Tour in 1993, when the Uzbek sprinter Djamolidine Abdoujaparov had his most successful Grande Boucle ever, with three stages and the points classification. The team ceased to exist from 1997 to 1999 due to a short-lived merger with Mapei, but the Galbusera family (father and son manage the company) put an end to the sponsor's hiatus in cycling with another sprinter, Czech Ján Svorada, who won Tour stages in both periods (1994 and 2001).
Before bolstering its arsenal with Italian sprinters such as Daniele Bennati, Alessandro Petacchi and Sacha Modolo, the Lampre team rocked the Tour de France in 2002, when young Swiss Rubens Bertogliati took off under the flamme rouge and dashed the hopes of the peloton led by Erik Zabel, who was still to remain the king of sprinting for some time. Rubén Plaza's solo victory in Gap in 2015 was the last major feat by a Lampre rider. In its seven starts as UAE Team Emirates, the team fought for the general classification and finished in eighth place twice, first in 2017 with the slender South African Louis Meintjes and then in 2018 with the Irishman Dan Martin, who also became the first rider to win a Tour de France stage for an outfit based in the Middle East. Alexander Kristoff became the first rider to win the Champs-Élysées stage for the team, which floundered in 2019 as Fabio Aru and Dan Martin finished fourteenth and eighteenth overall, respectively. Everything changed in 2020. Kristoff won the opener in Nice and pulled on the yellow jersey. Tadej Pogačar bode his time and waited until the right moment to reclaim the coveted garment for the team, on the eve of the finish, thanks to his victory in the time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles.
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper, lit up with a picture of the youngest Tour de France champion since 1904! It was no fluke. The first Slovenian to stand on top of the podium in Paris mounted a successful title defence in 2021, starting with the Laval time trial (stage 5) and wearing the leader's jersey for fourteen days before wrapping up the race with 5′20″ in hand over the runner-up, Jonas Vingegaard. He has extended his dominance across planet cycling with victories in several monuments: three in Liège–Bastogne–Liège, four in Il Lombardia and two in the Tour of Flanders.
COVID-19 wreaked havoc on UAE Team Emirates before and during the 2022 Tour, which goes a long way towards explaining why Pogačar was alone versus the Jumbo–Visma squad when Jonas Vingegaard got the better of him on the Col du Granon. The Slovenian's phenomenal start to the 2023 season (with 12 victories in 19 days of racing, including Paris–Nice and the Flèche Wallonne) seemed a portent of his return to the summit in July, but he hit a snag when he fractured a scaphoid bone in Liège–Bastogne–Liège. He ended up paying the price in the third week of the Tour de France. His new wingman, Adam Yates, turned on the afterburners to take the opening stage in Bilbao and held the yellow jersey for four days. The Slovenian remained well within striking distance of the golden fleece until he cracked on the Col de la Loze the day after bending the knee in the Combloux time trial. Even so, he managed to defend his runner-up's spot and collect his fourth (and last) white jersey in Paris, while Adam Yates clambered onto the overall podium for the first time in his life.
His victory in the Giro heralded his return as the apex predator of the Tour de France, culminating in the first Giro-Tour double since 1998. He was truly in a league of his own, spending nineteen days in the yellow jersey, bagging six stage wins —including the glamorous time trial from Monaco to Nice and the two stages before that— and finishing the race with 6′17″ to spare over Jonas Vingegaard in second. UAE Team Emirates also demolished the competition in the team classification and put another two riders in the top 6, with João Almeida in fourth and Adam Yates in sixth.
- Final victories3
- Stages victories34
- Yellows Jerseys47
- Other races Won11
Overall wins: 3
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2020, 2021 and 2024: Tadej Pogačar
Podium finishes: 4
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2002: Raimondas Rumšas, third
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2022: Tadej Pogačar, second
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2023: Tadej Pogačar, second, and Adam Yates, third
Stage wins: 34
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1993: Djamolidine Abdoujaparov in Vannes, Bordeaux and Paris
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1994: Ján Svorada in Futuroscope and Roberto Conti on the Alpe d'Huez
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1999: Ludo Dierckxsens in Saint-Étienne
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2001: Ján Svorada in Paris
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2002: Rubens Bertogliati in Luxembourg
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2007: Daniele Bennati in Castelsarrasin and Paris
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2010: Alessandro Petacchi in Brussels and Reims
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2015: Rubén Plaza in Gap
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2018: Dan Martin in Mûr-de-Bretagne and Alexander Kristoff in Paris
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2020: Alexander Kristoff in Nice and Tadej Pogačar in Laruns, on the Grand Colombier and on La Planche des Belles Filles
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2021: Tadej Pogačar in Laval and Saint-Lary-Soulan / Col de Portet and at Luz-Ardiden
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2022: Tadej Pogačar in Longwy on the Super Planche des Belles Filles and at Peyragudes
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2023: Adam Yates in Bilbao and Tadej Pogačar in Cauterets and at Le Markstein/Fellering
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2024: Tadej Pogačar in Valloire, Saint-Lary-Soulan–Pla d'Adet, Plateau de Beille, Isola 2000, Col de la Couillole and Nice
Secondary classification wins: 11
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1993: Djamolidine Abdoujaparov (points classification)
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2006: Damiano Cunego (best young rider)
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2010: Alessandro Petacchi (points classification)
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2018: Dan Martin (most combative rider)
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2020: Tadej Pogačar (mountains classification and best young rider)
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2021: Tadej Pogačar (mountains classification and best young rider)
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2022: Tadej Pogačar (best young rider)
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2023: Tadej Pogačar (best young rider)
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2024: team classification
Yellow jerseys: 47
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2002: Rubens Bertogliati, two days
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2020: Alexander Kristoff, one day, and Tadej Pogačar, two days
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2021: Tadej Pogačar, fourteen days
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2022: Tadej Pogačar, five days
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2023: Adam Yates, four days
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2024: Tadej Pogačar, nineteen days
STARTS: 28 (since 1993)
A FIGURE
5: the number of stage victories that Tadej Pogačar bagged while in the yellow jersey in 2024, more than any other rider since Bernard Hinault in 1979.
MILESTONES
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12 July 2018: Dan Martin takes the first Tour de France stage win for a team based in the Middle East with a powerful kick in Mûr-de-Bretagne.
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19 September 2020: 21-year-old Tadej Pogačar turns the race on its head in the time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles, wresting the overall lead from fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič and claiming the Tour de France on his first try.
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21 July 2024: Tadej Pogačar rolls down the start ramp for the time trial, less than a mile from his home in Monaco, and goes on to take the stage win in Nice — his sixth in this edition and seventeenth in his career, propelling him into the top 10 of all time at age 25.
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