'Crazy good' - UAE Team Emirates-XRG's perfect mountain strategy puts Tadej Pogačar within reach of fifth Tour de France title

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG riders were all tired beyond the finish line of Tour de France's stage 6 to Gavarnie-Gèdre but satisfied after executing their race strategy to perfection, with Tadej Pogačar winning alone and opening a 2:42 lead on Jonas Vingegaard.

There had been some pre-Tour debate about who had the strongest team, but UAE outperformed Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike team, confirming their super-team status with outstanding outputs from all seven riders riding for Pogačar.

Pogačar was first to the summit of the Col du Tourmalet, setting a new record time. He took the mountains competition polka-dot jersey as well as the yellow jersey. Isaac del Toro finished third on the stage, moved up to third overall, and now leads the best young rider competition.

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UAE are still third in the team classification, 27:08 down on Lidl-Trek, but probably have that in their sights.

"Every teammate was just incredible," Pogačar said, gushing in his praise of his teammates.

"I'm really proud of all of them. They are crazy good guys, and I'm super happy to realise this hype that we had the last two days."

Pogačar revealed they hatched their race plan while travelling to their hotel on the team bus on Wednesday evening, and then had fun executing every detail.

Nils Politt, Tim Wellens and Florian Vermersch did much of the early hard work on the flat roads north of Pau, keeping the pace high to control the early attacks and ensuring Pogačar and the other climbers were supplied with water and ice to help them fight the fierce heat. The high speeds on the flat roads also meant the Visma-Lease a Bike strategy of sending Victor Campenaerts and Matteo Jorgenson failed to work.

UAE took control of the stage on the climb of the Col d'Aspin and chased down Ben O'Connor (Jayco-AlUla), imposing their authority on the peloton. They soon had a clear numerical and psychological superiority.

On the Col du Tourmalet, their white-and-black jerseys led the peloton, shaking out the weaker riders and creating a select group of 20. Felix Großschartner did a long, hard turn on the lower slopes of the Tourmalet, then Brandon McNulty matched his effort, reducing the group to a dozen or so GC contenders.

As they left the tunnel and neared the La Mongie ski resort, Adam Yates and then Isaac del Toro upped the speed to give Pogačar the perfect launch pad for his solo attack.

There were a lot of high-fives and smiles as the riders came into the finish in Gavarnie-Gèdre, knowing that Pogačar had completed the strategy and taken control of the Tour de France. McNulty, Grossschartner and del Toro seem to be fighting for the UAE MVP prize.

"For sure we make jokes about it, but everyone is here to give 100%," Grossschartner told Cyclingnews about the prize.

"Some day I have a better day, some day another guy has a better day. We spend a lot of time together, and we know everyone, what we do and how we think. Today was one of the days when everybody was really on 100%. It was great to see. That Tadej can finish it off and Isaac gets third, is perfect."

UAE Team Manager Mauro Gianetti has witnessed many of Tadej Pogačar's victories but was full of admiration for the Slovenian and for all the UAE riders. Gianetti hugged Pogačar near the finish.

"Tadej surprises me every time he does a performance like this," Gianetti told Cyclingnews.

"The plan was to make a hard pace on the Col d'Aspin and then the Col du Tourmalet, to do it full gas and make the difference. We didn't want to wait for the climb to the finish because it wasn't steep enough and there was a tailwind. We didn't want to come under attack on the ride to the finish, so we attacked first. The team executed every detail of the plan."

Pogačar is already in yellow and dominating the 2026 Tour after just six stages, yet UAE seem ready to again control the race all the way to Paris.

"That's OK. We've done it before," Gianetti said, with total confidence in his team.

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