"Adam Yates Has Carried This Team Before, He Will Carry It Again" — UAE Team Emirates-XRG Names An Eight-Rider Giro d'Italia 2026 Squad Built Around Yates And Sivakov In The Mountains, GC Brief Recalibrated To Podium After Almeida's Illness Withdrawal
Saturday afternoon Abu Dhabi. Six days from the 8 May Grande Partenza, UAE Team Emirates-XRG have published their eight-rider 2026 Giro d'Italia squad: Adam Yates as the GC leader, Pavel Sivakov as the second card and the high-mountain domestique, with Rafal Majka, Felix Grossschartner, Marc Hirschi, Domen Novak, Mikkel Bjerg and Igor Arrieta filling out the support cast. The post-launch internal brief takes the GC ceiling from "podium-and-pink-jersey" to "podium if the form is there, best of the rest if it isn't" — a recalibration the team have not had to make at a grand tour since the 2022 Tour de France. Joao Almeida's illness withdrawal yesterday is the only reason it has been written.
Yates moves into the GC seat for the third grand tour of his UAE career, having previously led the team into the 2022 Tour and the 2023 Vuelta. The 33-year-old's grand-tour palmares carries a 2022 Tour fourth, a 2023 Vuelta third and a 2024 Tour third behind Pogacar and Vingegaard — the platform UAE's management have leaned on this morning to recalibrate the public messaging after Almeida's withdrawal. "Adam has carried this team before, he will carry it again," sport director Joxean Matxin Fernandez told the launch room. "The brief is podium. The team around him knows what that costs."
Sivakov's role is the closest UAE have come to running a co-leadership card in 2026. The Russian-born Frenchman has built the strongest spring of his career — second on Stage 4 of Itzulia, fourth on the Strade Bianche team time trial, and a four-day shift on the Romandie front this week including the Sion-Anzere stage shutdown that delivered Pogacar his Stage 4 win this evening. The team's internal climbing data has Sivakov within three percent of Yates on a sustained Cat-1 effort, and the Stage 16 Mottolino-Bormio queen stage is the marked day on which a Sivakov-for-Yates split-card scenario could open. The market is priced 7/1 Sivakov ends the Giro inside the top six.
The supporting cast is built around two specific tactical roles. Majka and Grossschartner are the medium-mountain shutdown package, the riders who will work the long valleys and the Cat-2 climbs to keep Yates in position before the closing 8-12km of any GC stage. Hirschi gets the puncheur's brief: any reduced-bunch finale across the first nine stages is his to take. Bjerg is the time-trial specialist, with the team confirming this morning he is the protected rider for Stage 1's 16.4km Nessebar opening — the only stage in the first week UAE have priced as a stage-win opportunity outside Hirschi's puncheur card. Arrieta and Novak make up the road-captain layer.
The change in GC math is significant. With Almeida in the squad, UAE's pre-race expected-value model put the team at 1.7 stage wins and 0.6 podium finishes — the second-highest team expected-value of the field after Visma. Without him, the model drops to 1.1 stage wins and 0.3 podium finishes. The GC podium probability for the team specifically falls from 38 percent to 22 percent, a delta the team's race-strategy brief acknowledges as "the largest pre-race ceiling cut UAE have absorbed since the 2021 Tour de France withdrawal of Brandon McNulty". The team have not asked for the leadership pressure to be moved on this morning's ride.
"We are not the favorites," Matxin said. "Visma are the favorites. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe are the second favourites. We are riding the GC race that Adam can ride. The mountains are where this Giro is decided. We have prepared the mountains." The Stage 16 Mottolino-Bormio queen stage and the Stage 20 San Pellegrino in Alpe TT remain the team's two priced GC days, with the Stage 14 Asiago double-summit and the Stage 17 Sappada finish identified as the days the team will commit Sivakov to a Yates-protection ride at his physical ceiling.
The decision not to call up Isaac del Toro as the Almeida replacement was the most discussed line in the launch press conference. The 22-year-old Mexican has spent the second half of April at the team's Andorra altitude camp and was on the original Giro long-list before Ayuso's reroute and Almeida's illness reshuffled the balance. UAE confirmed Del Toro will instead lead the team into the 4 Jours de Dunkerque next week and join the Tour de Suisse squad as the warm-up ahead of his August Vuelta debut.
Yates leaves for Sofia on Tuesday with Bjerg and Hirschi. The remainder of the squad arrives 36 hours before Stage 1. The team's pre-race press conference is scheduled for 18:00 on Wednesday at the Hilton Sofia. The internal target after the recalibration is podium-or-fourth, four stages contested, one stage win across the three weeks. The Almeida-shaped hole at the top of the GC card is a problem UAE have absorbed inside seventy-two hours. Whether Yates can carry the team through three weeks at altitude is the question the next 21 days will answer.