<\/div>\n
Tom Pidcock finished third behind a UAE Emirates 1-2 on Friday as he debuted a season pointing directly at the Tour de France.<\/p>\n
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The Brit launched a late chase behind the rampaging Marc Soler and his following teammate Julius Johansen at the Vuelta a Murcia in what\u2019s his warm-up for bigger goals at the gravelly Cl\u00e1sica Ja\u00e9n and Ruta del Sol stage race.<\/p>\n
Soler won the stage in his typical swashbuckling fashion, peeling away from an attack loaded with UAE Emirates-XRG muscle in a wind-shortened stage across southeastern Spain.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old\u2019s sensational solo comes amid a tricky week for the UAE Emirates racer and his family.<\/p>\n
Escape Collective<\/em> and AS<\/em> reported this week that Soler\u2019s father, an amateur triathlete, has allegedly been working with Pepe Mart\u00ed. The Spanish trainer is currently serving a ban from working with athletes after he was proven to have a role in the US Postal doping scandals.<\/p>\n 1\u20132 brought home \ud83d\ude4c\ud83d\udca5<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfc6 @solermarc93 a bold attack for the victory, with \ud83e\udd48 Julius Johansen sealing a strong 1\u20132 for the team at @VueltaRM \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8.<\/p>\n Well done, boys! #WeAreUAE pic.twitter.com\/eVADpSmJc4<\/p>\n \u2014 @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamEmiratesUAE) February 13, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Pidcock didn\u2019t get the \u201cW\u201d on Friday but said he was more than happy with his form after he pushed for his team to take an unconventional training camp in Chile this winter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe struggled with our radios a bit. When Tim [Wellens, UAE] attacked, I was taking a gel and then it was a bit late, and in front they\u2019d gone,\u201d Pidcock told reporters at the finish. \u201cIn the end, it was so fast you can\u2019t bring back this time gap. They [UAE] did a perfect race really.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m pretty happy with my legs and how I felt in the end,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t complain too much, we got outsmarted today.\u201d<\/p>\n Pidcock will race an ambitious program with his newly renamed Pinarello-Q36.5 squad in 2026.<\/p>\n After early racing in Spain, the 26-year-old heads to the Italian and Ardennes classics before he leads Q36.5 into its Tour de France debut.<\/p>\n After placing third last year at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, Pidcock said he plans to take a new mindset into the Tour this July.<\/p>\n \u201cMy main goal is to go there and have fun and enjoy it, and I think that will bring success,\u201d Pidcock told The Observer<\/em>. \u201cObviously, we\u2019re going to have to train our balls off.\u201d<\/p>\n Pidcock has a tumultuous relationship with the Tour that began with a bombastic stage win on debut in 2022 and ended with a race \u201che didn\u2019t enjoy\u201d and did not finish in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re competing just to stay in the top 10, I struggle to find the motivation to do that and have to battle with that for three weeks,\u201d Pidcock told The Observer <\/em>this week. \u201cIt\u2019s just draining.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if we can go and enjoy the stress of the Tour, then that will help change my mindset back to how it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n The Vuelta a Murcia concludes Saturday with another lumpy stage across the small Spanish community.<\/p>\n After placing 5 riders in the top-10 with a mass attack on stage 1, it\u2019s UAE\u2019s to lose.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/pidcock-podium-season-debut\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-SKIMO-4.jpeg”] Jim Cotton Updated February 13, 2026 09:32AM Tom Pidcock finished third behind a UAE Emirates 1-2 on Friday as he debuted a season pointing directly at the Tour de France. The Brit launched a late chase behind the rampaging Marc Soler and his following teammate Julius Johansen at the Vuelta a Murcia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1769661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1769661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1769661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1769661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1769661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
From Chile to the Tour de France for Pidcock and Pinarello-Q36.5<\/h2>\n
![\"Pidcock](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2261444661.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")