UAE's Ardennes Leadership Reshuffle: Who Steps Up After Del Toro's Itzulia Abandon?
Twelve days out from Amstel Gold Race, UAE Team Emirates-XRG suddenly have an Ardennes leadership problem. Isaac del Toro's abandon from Itzulia Basque Country on stage 3 has pulled the rug from under a plan that was supposed to give the Emirati super-team a second string through the hardest three races of the Classics calendar — and it has pushed the question that keeps cropping up around this team all over again. How much more can Tadej Pogačar reasonably be asked to do?
The original plan, confirmed in Abu Dhabi during the team's pre-season media day, was elegant. Del Toro would build through Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Itzulia before being handed the keys to Amstel Gold and La Flèche Wallonne as designated team leader. Pogačar — already expected to ride every weekend from February's UAE Tour through to Paris-Roubaix — would have a genuine rest week and arrive at Liège-Bastogne-Liège fresh, with Del Toro moving into the support cast behind him. It was a plan that gave UAE an additional Ardennes card and Pogačar his first proper ten-day block without a race number on his back since November. Neither of those things will now happen.
The quickest fix is the most obvious. Pogačar simply leads Amstel Gold, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège as one continuous campaign. He has done it before — 2023 and 2025 produced a Flèche-Liège double and an Amstel-Liège double respectively — and he arrives at this year's Ardennes week in the best form of his life. The argument against is also obvious: he will already have spent seven hours on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, which if things go well carries the additional weight of a first-ever Monument in that race and a Grand Slam in sight. There is a limit to how much emotional and physical investment can be stacked into a single three-week block, and even Pogačar is not immune to gravity.
Brandon McNulty is already at altitude in Sierra Nevada preparing for the Giro d'Italia and will not be pulled off that block. Adam Yates is still recovering from his Volta a Catalunya crash and has been off the bike for nine days. Juan Ayuso is in the middle of Itzulia and pivoting to a targeted Giro run with Yates at his side. Marc Hirschi left for Tudor Pro Cycling this winter. João Almeida is committed to the Giro-Vuelta double. The list of UAE riders both fit and available for Ardennes co-leadership in late April is, candidly, a list of one.
That leaves a range of half-solutions. Pavel Sivakov has been riding the best spring of his career and is realistically the best internal option for Amstel Gold; his steady climbing and tactical discipline would play well on the Cauberg finishes that the new finale has given the race. Rafał Majka is an old hand who could be pulled from his planned Vuelta build-up if the team asks. Felix Großschartner is another Grand Tour domestique who could be rerouted from altitude. None of them are winners at Ardennes level — but a UAE team willing to race defensively behind Pogačar could make one of them into a dangerous plan B.
The quieter conversation at UAE will be about Ardennes 2027 and beyond. Del Toro had been identified as the rider who would one day graduate out of Pogačar's shadow and lead the team's one-day racing programme. A single crash on a nondescript stage 3 in the Basque Country does not change that long-term trajectory, but it is a reminder that the team's Ardennes over-reliance on Pogačar is a structural issue, not a tactical choice. Every time the second option goes down — Ayuso with food poisoning in 2024, McNulty with a broken collarbone in 2025, Del Toro in a heap on a Basque roundabout in 2026 — the campaign simply collapses into "whatever Pogačar does next."
In the short term, expect an announcement on Thursday or Friday confirming that Pogačar will ride all three Ardennes races. In the medium term, expect the transfer market to see increased UAE interest in a designated Ardennes leader before the summer shopping window closes — perhaps one of the current Decathlon-AG2R or Soudal-QuickStep options who have quietly been available. And in Basauri, expect Del Toro — once the scans come back — to start the difficult mental work of re-planning a season that had until this morning been going exactly as he wanted it to.