Is there Tour de France Femmes tension brewing at UAE Team L'IMAD?

When was the last time we had serious leadership drama in the women's peloton? The great redistribution of talent (and wealth) in 2024 and 2025 put a lot of those issues to bed, all the biggest riders finally on different teams, and we haven't seen many repeats of the Kopecky-Vollering Strade Bianche incident in the last two years.

However, on the eve of the Tour de France Femmes, it feels like leadership tension could be beginning to brew at the newly re-named UAE Team L'IMAD.

On paper, UAE are coming into this team with a quite unbelievably strong squad. A two-time Giro d'Italia winner in Elisa Longo Borghini, the recent Vuelta Femenina champion in Paula Blasi, the rider who finished fourth overall here last year, Dominika Włodarczyk, and the rider who won two climbing stages last edition, Maëva Squiban.

But what they're going to do with that squad is anyone's guess. At a team press conference on Thursday evening, an event where you literally invite the press to come and ask you about your race plan, the riders resolutely did not want to reveal anything about their race plan. Which is… strange. So, why?

Well, we can't read the riders' minds, but the unusual press conference only added fuel to the fire that there is a lack of clarity, perhaps even a lack of unity, about who is leading this race for the team.

2026 Vuelta Femenina winner Blasi and two-time Giro champion Longo Borghini could both lay claim to being overall leader at this race, and it wouldn't be unusual for UAE to come out and say they were co-leaders, but that isn't what's emerged over the last few days. Instead, the team have tried to keep their plans quiet, whilst Blasi has come straight out and said she's not a leader, nor a co-leader, she's been sent here to ride for the team and gain experience.

As a journalist, I'm always looking for a story, and it definitely feels like there is a story here. What exactly the story is might only become clear as this race develops, but here's what I can tell you so far.

Observing Blasi in the mixed zone, she was careful but clear with her words. Her attitude was not negative, far from it, she seemed thrilled to be there, but her message was clear. She had been sent to the race to gain experience and help her teammates, and yes, it would have been nice to have a bigger role, but she accepts that she is young and inexperienced in this race. She answered questions about leadership confidently, clearly, and – it felt – honestly.

Her teammates were not always so clear, with Elisa Longo Borghini being uncharacteristically coy about her hopes, hesitant to pin any clear leadership ambitions on herself. After multiple DNFs in this race, I fully believe Longo Borghini when she says she just wants to finish, but at the same time, if you've been given leadership over another rider, you're allowed to stand up and own it.

With the team's reluctance to outline their plan, it could be taken as them quietly backing Blasi as leader but not wanting to reveal that, as some sort of clever ploy to take the attention off the Spanish rider, but with how open Blasi has been about the leaders – to her eyes – being Longo Borghini and Włodarcyzk and decidedly not her, I'm not sure UAE are playing quite that level of 4D chess right now.

What seems more likely is that there is a degree of tension at the team, not necessarily between the riders themselves, but between the riders and the management and directors. Blasi genuinely did not seem annoyed about the position she was in, or at least she's been able to process and put away any frustration, but it's not inconceivable to think that a young rider coming from nowhere and suddenly challenging for leadership against the team's star signing and veteran in Longo Borghini could cause a little bit of friction.

Blasi on the move

I'd say this issue comes down to some broader tension between Blasi and the team. She came up via their development programme, has only ever ridden for them, including taking all of her big wins this year wearing their jersey, but by all accounts, she is on her way out of the team next year.

The issue doesn't seem to be money, with UAE reportedly having a deep purse that could surely match whatever offers Blasi is getting elsewhere, which points to Blasi just not wanting to be there anymore, for one reason or another. She also has a reported €100,000 release clause written into her contract. To lose such a talented and valuable rider for a reason like that is very possibly a failure of the team and its management.

We don't yet know if these issues are related, but it's worth knowing that the team's CEO Yana Seel officially stepped down this week, and one of their main sports directors, Michel Cornelisse, is out the door too.

To bring this back to the Tour, though, it's not unusual that when a rider is leaving a team, the team starts to pull back on some of their opportunities, including perhaps not nominating them as a leader at certain races, and it seems very possible that that is what is going on here.

But the problem with all of this is that team orders can actually only go so far, and telling a team that rider A is leader and riders BCD are there to help does not always assuage any concerns about internal competition and potential usurping. Because ultimately, if one rider is stronger on one stage or one climb, or even worse the time trial – which will be key in this race, and where riders really can't purposefully go slower than their teammate – then suddenly your best laid plans and roles have gone out the window.

And I think that's where the issue might be stemming from at UAE. There is a plan and a hierarchy and everyone has been given a role that reflects their position in the team, and all should be fair. But Blasi is coming in with what, she says, are her best numbers so far. And so there is a very real threat, for riders like Longo Borghini and Włodarczyk, that she will simply be better one day.

No matter how humble and accepting Blasi tries to be with her words, if the legs speak, it could be a very different story. What has been a low level tension bubbling under the surface could become real leadership conflict. We will just have to see how this one plays out.

Support our unrivalled coverage of the Tour de France Femmes and women's cycling by subscribing to Cyclingnews. In return, you get unlimited access to high-quality journalism, with breaking news, race analysis, and expert insight from inside the women's peloton. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.