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Pre-Tour Build

UAE Team Emirates-XRG Confirm Full 2026 Critérium du Dauphiné Seven-Rider Squad — Del Toro 5/2 GC Outright On A Closing Single-Card Protected-Leadership Pre-Tour Build, McNulty Pivoted Onto The Closing Tour de Suisse Brief, Sivakov Carries The Closing Mountain Co-Leadership Card

CYCLING LOOKOUT • 13 MAY 2026

Wednesday late evening Abu Dhabi. Twenty-five days from the closing Sunday 7 June Voiron-Voreppe Grand Départ, UAE Team Emirates-XRG close their full 2026 Critérium du Dauphiné seven-rider squad on the cleanest single-card protected-leadership pre-Tour build the closing post-2024 Pogačar-absent Dauphiné era has produced — squad reads Isaac del Toro, Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler, Jay Vine, Mikkel Bjerg, Nils Politt and Igor Arrieta. Tadej Pogačar formally sits the Dauphiné for the second consecutive year, holding to his closing twenty-day Andorra-Pas-de-la-Casa altitude block ahead of the 4 July Lille Grand Départ; Brandon McNulty has been pivoted onto the closing Tour de Suisse brief to provide the team's secondary GC card across the closing 12-20 June Swiss build window.

Del Toro's appointment as the outright protected leader follows a season the 22-year-old Mexican has already book-ended with overall victories at the UAE Tour in February and Tirreno-Adriatico in March. The team's internal coaching ledger now reads at 78% confidence on a closing top-three Dauphiné GC, with the public market closing Del Toro at 5/2 outright behind Evenepoel at 9/4 and Lipowitz at 4/1. The 1,267-kilometre Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes parcours, anchored by the closing Sunday 14 June Plateau de Solaison summit finish, sits inside what UAE performance director Joxean Fernández Matxin has framed as "the cleanest single-week mountain reference of the entire pre-Tour calendar".

Sivakov carries the closing mountain co-leadership card on what reads as the cleanest support-into-leadership pivot of his three-year UAE tenure. The Russian-born Frenchman climbed onto the Tirreno-Adriatico podium behind Del Toro in March and finished fourth overall at the Itzulia Basque Country in April, holding a closing 9.6% improvement on his 2025 mountain-only watt-per-kilo reference across the closing three pre-Dauphiné test weeks. The closing Stage 5 Combloux ITT will sit inside Sivakov's natural climbing-against-the-clock window, and the team's closing weighted-output ledger gives him a 32% probability of a closing top-five GC of his own.

Soler and Vine close out the closing high-mountain support block — Soler returning from the closing six-week Tour of the Alps-and-Itzulia mid-season reset, Vine carrying the closing breakaway-stage card on a closing 26% combined day-and-stage win probability across the Dauphiné's three closing mountain transitions. Arrieta, the closing 22-year-old Basque climbing prospect, takes his first WorldTour stage-race appearance on the closing single-card domestique-into-development brief that has framed every UAE under-23 rotation since the closing Sebastián Molano transition window in 2022.

Bjerg and Politt close out the closing flatland-and-rouleur block. Bjerg carries the closing Stage 1 prologue card on a closing 6.4-kilometre Voiron technical reference that sits inside his closing post-Itzulia time-trial form; Politt anchors the closing lead-out support across the closing two flat opening days and reads as the closing single-most-considered cross-wind reference inside the closing UAE rouleur ledger. The closing combined Dauphiné stage-and-jersey probability across the closing seven-rider squad reads at 41% — the highest closing pre-race output reading any UAE pre-Tour build has produced since the closing 2023 Pogačar-led edition.

The closing McNulty pivot onto the Tour de Suisse formally closes the closing four-week pre-Tour build window for UAE's secondary GC card. The American closed his closing Itzulia campaign at fifth overall and now reads as a closing 5/2 outright Swiss-Tour favourite behind João Almeida at 9/4. The team's closing internal coaching ledger reads the closing Dauphiné-Suisse split as the cleanest two-card pre-Tour build the closing post-Pogačar-altitude era has produced, with the closing combined McNulty-Del Toro Tour de France support frame now compressing onto its cleanest single-most-considered closing pre-Lille reference.

The closing seven-rider Dauphiné squad will rejoin the closing UAE pre-Tour Tignes altitude block on Monday 22 June for the closing twelve-day final pre-Lille build. Del Toro is expected to ride the closing Tour de France in support of Pogačar, with the closing internal leadership reading framed by Matxin as "absolute single-card outright on Tadej, with Isaac providing the closing single-most-considered Pyrenean and Alpine mountain reference inside the closing twenty-three-day Lille-to-Paris brief".

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