Vingegaard Survived the Carnage, UAE Didn’t: Now the Giro d’Italia Belongs to Visma

Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike are surging again just as UAE Emirates-XRG is cracking, and without Tadej Pogačar, the sport’s most dominant team is suddenly stripped of its invincibility at the 2026 Giro d’Italia.

In contrast, Visma — which couldn’t buy luck even if it was on sale at the Dollar Store during the past two years — has rediscovered its bite.

Vingegaard stayed upright in the opening three stages of the 2026 Giro and even fired off a few warning shots to confirm his pink jersey ambitions.

“The goal was to come through the opening stages safely, and with Jonas we succeeded in doing that,” said Visma sport director Marc Reef. “He rode a strong finale [Saturday], which gives us a lot of confidence for the rest of this race.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Italian journeyman Filippo Fiorelli won Tro-Bro Léon on Sunday in the “mini-Paris-Roubaix.”

And the real Paris-Roubaix winner Wout van Aert won a gravel race in his first start since the Hell of the North, both signs that momentum is swinging back in favor of the Killer Bees.

Strip away Pogačar and his near-perfect spring, and UAE suddenly looks like every other team.

This weekend’s Giro exposed that brutal reality for UAE-backed super team. With three riders crashing out of a thread-bare lineup before the race even reaches Italy, UAE has almost no chance to win the maglia rosa.

And so far in 2026, Visma has its mojo back, and UAE — with the obvious caveat of Pogačar — is limping in and out of the sick ward at the worst possible time.

How bad at UAE?

Luck and momentum can decide races and shape entire seasons.

After bulldozing the peloton for the past two seasons, UAE Emirates-XRG is the one getting plowed.

Injuries and setbacks piled up early, with Jhonatan Narváez, Mikel Bjerg, Vegard Stake Laengen, and Pablo Torres all banged up this spring.

Jay Vine even got hit by a kangaroo at the Santos Tour Down Under, as if the cycling gods were sending an early warning that this year would be different.

“There were 14 riders and then five from the continental team,” Joxean Fernández Matxin told Marca about the team’s nightmare spring. “Five of those were riders capable of winning races.”

Tim Wellens crashed at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and missed the entire cobbled classics campaign with a broken collarbone.

Isaac del Toro abandoned the Itzulia Basque Country, though he avoided serious injury and has since been scouting Tour de France stages with Pogačar.

João Almeida, the team’s GC leader for the Giro, was ruled out with a lingering infection, leaving the team scrambling before the race even started.

Then came the knockout blow. A brutal crash Saturday took out Vine, Marc Soler, and pre-race podium contender Adam Yates, gutting UAE’s Giro ambitions in a single punch.

To add insult to injury, Filippo Baroncini — the promising Italian rider who nearly died last year in a crash at the Tour de Pologne — broke a clavicle and will undergo surgery after crashing Sunday at Tro-Bro Léon.

The Pogačar factor

Of course, UAE’s woes are more than offset by the singular force of Pogačar.

With Pogačar holding fire until the Tour de France, the opening weekend of the 2026 Giro has already taken UAE out of the fight for pink.

And it exposed just how quickly a super team can unravel when luck turns the wrong way.

Last year the team was riding a wave, breaking records with an all-time mark for victories, with more than 20 riders contributing wins across the season.

Thankfully for UAE, Pogačar is so far immune to the outbreak of bad luck.

A near-perfect campaign for the Slovenian — five wins in six starts, with only a narrow loss to van Aert at Paris-Roubaix — has helped has helped Band-Aid over the cuts.

In just 11 race days, Pogačar won eight, including four stages and the overall at the Tour de Romandie, plus four of five one-day races.

Pogačar will shape this Giro even when he’s not there.

Since 2020, Visma has won six grand tours when Pogačar wasn’t racing, so without the Slovenian, Vingegaard now looks almost unrivaled from here to Rome.

Unfortunately for Matxin, it’s too late to call up Pogačar for the corsa rosa.

Pendulum swings back

As bleak as things are at UAE, Visma is suddenly flying high again, and the timing could not be more decisive in the super team rivalry.

Dogged by bad luck over the past two years — with crashes, injuries, and illness hitting nearly every leader — the Dutch powerhouse finally seems to have the wind at its back again.

Van Aert’s Paris-Roubaix triumph turned the team’s momentum, with that elusive monument victory giving the team the morale boost it needed.

And more importantly for this still-challenging Giro, Vingegaard is healthy, confident, and looking like the best version of himself again.

The Dane left Bulgaria without a scratch and looks primed to win the Giro and complete the grand tour sweep.

Visma didn’t escape unscathed, with Wilco Kelderman also caught up in Saturday’s crash, but the rest of the team is upright and upbeat.

“The downside is that Wilco crashed hard in the second stage. We’ll have to wait and see how that develops over the next few days,” Reef said. “Overall, we’re in a good position and looking forward to the continuation of the Giro in Italy.”

No one is counting their chickens before they’re hatched, but everyone is smiling again around the Visma bus.

And in a sport as brutal and unpredictable as pro cycling, that momentum matters.

At least until Pogačar returns for the Tour de France.