Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike are\u00a0surging again just as UAE Emirates-XRG is cracking, and without Tadej Poga\u010dar, the sport\u2019s most dominant team is suddenly stripped of its invincibility at the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia.<\/p>\n
In contrast, Visma \u2014 which couldn\u2019t buy luck even if it was on sale at the Dollar Store during the past two years \u2014 has rediscovered its bite.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal was to come through the opening stages safely, and with Jonas we succeeded in doing that,\u201d said Visma sport director Marc Reef. \u201cHe rode a strong finale [Saturday], which gives us a lot of confidence for the rest of this race.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if that wasn\u2019t enough, Italian journeyman Filippo Fiorelli won Tro-Bro L\u00e9on on Sunday in the \u201cmini-Paris-Roubaix.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the real<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n Strip away Poga\u010dar and his near-perfect spring, and UAE suddenly looks like every other team.<\/p>\n This weekend\u2019s 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n And so far in 2026, Visma has its mojo back, and UAE \u2014 with the obvious caveat of Poga\u010dar \u2014 is limping in and out of the sick ward at the worst possible time.<\/p>\n Luck and momentum can decide races and shape entire seasons.<\/p>\n After bulldozing the peloton for the past two seasons, UAE Emirates-XRG is the one getting plowed.<\/p>\n Injuries and setbacks piled up early, with Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez, Mikel Bjerg, Vegard Stake Laengen, and Pablo Torres all banged up this spring.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were 14 riders and then five from the continental team,\u201d Joxean Fern\u00e1ndez Matxin told Marca<\/em> about the team\u2019s nightmare spring. \u201cFive of those were riders capable of winning races.\u201d<\/p>\n Tim Wellens crashed at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and missed the entire cobbled classics campaign with a broken collarbone.<\/p>\n Isaac del Toro abandoned the Itzulia Basque Country, though he avoided serious injury and has since been scouting Tour de France stages with Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n Jo\u00e3o Almeida, the team\u2019s GC leader for the Giro, was ruled out with a lingering infection, leaving the team scrambling before the race even started.<\/p>\n Then came the knockout blow. A brutal crash Saturday took out Vine, Marc Soler, and pre-race podium contender Adam Yates, gutting UAE\u2019s Giro ambitions in a single punch.<\/p>\n To add insult to injury, Filippo Baroncini \u2014 the promising Italian rider who nearly died last year in a crash at the Tour de Pologne \u2014 broke a clavicle and will undergo surgery after crashing Sunday at Tro-Bro L\u00e9on.<\/p>\n Of course, UAE\u2019s woes are more than offset by the singular force of Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n With Poga\u010dar holding fire until the Tour de France, the opening weekend of the 2026 Giro has already taken UAE out of the fight for pink.<\/p>\n And it exposed just how quickly a super team can unravel when luck turns the wrong way.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Thankfully for UAE, Poga\u010dar is so far immune to the outbreak of bad luck.<\/p>\n A near-perfect campaign for the Slovenian \u2014 five wins in six starts, with only a narrow loss to van Aert at Paris-Roubaix \u2014 has helped has helped Band-Aid over the cuts.<\/p>\n In just 11 race days, Poga\u010dar won eight, including four stages and the overall at the Tour de Romandie, plus four of five one-day races.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar will shape this Giro even when he\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n Since 2020, Visma has won six grand tours when Poga\u010dar wasn\u2019t racing, so without the Slovenian, Vingegaard now looks almost unrivaled from here to Rome.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Matxin, it\u2019s too late to call up Poga\u010dar for the corsa rosa<\/em>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Dogged by bad luck over the past two years \u2014 with crashes, injuries, and illness hitting nearly every leader \u2014 the Dutch powerhouse finally seems to have the wind at its back again.<\/p>\n Van Aert\u2019s Paris-Roubaix triumph turned the team\u2019s momentum, with that elusive monument victory giving the team the morale boost it needed.<\/p>\n And more importantly for this still-challenging Giro, Vingegaard is healthy, confident, and looking like the best version of himself again.<\/p>\n The Dane left Bulgaria without a scratch and looks primed to win the Giro and complete the grand tour sweep.<\/p>\n Visma didn\u2019t escape unscathed, with Wilco Kelderman also caught up in Saturday\u2019s crash, but the rest of the team is upright and upbeat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe downside is that Wilco crashed hard in the second stage. We\u2019ll have to wait and see how that develops over the next few days,\u201d Reef said. \u201cOverall, we\u2019re in a good position and looking forward to the continuation of the Giro in Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n No one is counting their chickens before they\u2019re hatched, but everyone is smiling again around the Visma bus.<\/p>\n And in a sport as brutal and unpredictable as pro cycling, that momentum matters.<\/p>\n At least until Poga\u010dar returns for the Tour de France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/vingegaard-survives-carnage-uae-crash-giro-ditalia-pogacar\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/UAEVISMAhorizontal.jpg”] Andrew Hood Published May 11, 2026 04:18AM Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike are\u00a0surging again just as UAE Emirates-XRG is cracking, and without Tadej Poga\u010dar, the sport\u2019s most dominant team is suddenly stripped of its invincibility at the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia. In contrast, Visma \u2014 which couldn\u2019t buy luck even if it […]<\/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-1929232","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\/1929232","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=1929232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1929232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1929232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1929232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How bad at UAE?<\/h2>\n
![\"Adam](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2275318173-720x480.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
The Poga\u010dar factor<\/h2>\n
![\"Tadej](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2274153290-720x480.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Pendulum swings back<\/h2>\n
![\"Vingegard\"](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2275420768-720x480.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")