UAE Tour unveils route featuring brutal new climb — and GC battle between Vingegaard, Del Toro and Evenepoel!

It was already known that Del Toro would ride the UAE Tour — the Mexican champion is returning to defend his home soil after Tadej Pogačar’s win last year with UAE Team Emirates-XRG. But he’s not going to have an easy ride: the 22-year-old climbing specialist faces stiff competition from Jonas Vingegaard.

The Danish Tour de France champion confirmed his participation recently. “It’s a WorldTour race and very important,” he explained when announcing his programme. “With an eye on the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, I wanted to race two more events. The Tour of Catalonia is very suitable for that, and then I had to choose between Tirreno–Adriatico, Paris-Nice and the UAE Tour. With the other two, it would have been too tight after Catalonia.”

That’s a clear explanation. But there’s a third contender who could shake things up. There had already been rumours, and now the organisers have confirmed that Remco Evenepoel will start in the UAE Tour too. The Belgian, riding for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, reportedly chose the UAE Tour over Tirreno or Paris-Nice — setting up a potential three-way battle for general classification honours.

The UAE Tour route consists of seven stages, and the overall layout will be familiar to fans. The opening stage, like in 2025, goes to Liwa Palace — a day for punchers and powerful sprinters. After a time trial on Al Hudayriyat Island, the race reaches its first mountain stage: the ascent to Jebel Mobrah. Two more flat stages follow before the traditional finale up Jebel Hafeet.

But it’s the Jebel Mobrah climb that’s causing the biggest buzz. It’s a completely new climb that has never featured in elite racing before and is already being talked about as a monster test. The climb extends roughly 15 kilometres, with the first section averaging around 7%. But the toughest part comes in the final six kilometres, where gradients never dip below 10% and average around 12%, with pitches reaching up to 17%. That’s potential GC-shaping territory — and exactly the kind of brutal test that could define the 2026 race.