Just two mountain stages stand between Tadej Poga\u010dar and a record-tying fifth Tour de France title, but his powerhouse UAE Emirates-XRG team is suddenly running short of firepower.<\/p>\n
Brandon McNulty abandoned on Thursday in stage 18 and Tim Wellens limped home last to barely survive the time cut as UAE Emirates-XRG endured another blow in the first of three decisive Alpine summit finishes.<\/p>\n
Could Poga\u010dar be dangerously exposed before this weekend\u2019s double-barreled Alpe d\u2019Huez showdown?<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar has shown no signs of illness and insisted he\u2019s ready to handle anything in the Tour\u2019s final weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too bad we lost him,\u201d Pogacar said of McNulty. \u201cHe felt ill, and I wish him a speedy recovery. I hope he will be good for the Paris afterparty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only Isaac del Toro remained alongside Poga\u010dar in the select favorites group over Thursday\u2019s final Cat. 1 climb to Orci\u00e8res-Merlette.<\/p>\n
His commanding 4:32 lead over Remco Evenepoel gives UAE a cushion, but the yellow jersey suddenly has far less support for the Tour\u2019s decisive weekend.<\/p>\n
Illness has swept through UAE\u2019s climbing squad the past few days, but UAE told Eurosport<\/em> that Wellens is not sick. Adam Yates narrowly survived Wednesday\u2019s time cut before recovering enough to finish Thursday.<\/p>\n UAE and Poga\u010dar have controlled this Tour for nearly three weeks. Now, on the eve of Alpe d\u2019Huez, the team is running ragged just as Poga\u010dar closes in on a record-tying fifth Tour title.<\/p>\n Before celebrating in Paris, he has to survive back-to-back summit finishes at Alpe d\u2019Huez.<\/p>\n The Slovenian finished safely in the main GC group behind breakaway winner Richard Carapaz on Friday.<\/p>\n There were no major attacks among the favorites as everyone is bracing for Friday\u2019s 127.9km 19th stage from Gap and finishing straight up the famed 21 lacets<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the situation is like this, and the guys don\u2019t get better from the sickness, then yeah, you never know what you have to do in the end,\u201d Poga\u010dar said. \u201cYou need to ride on instinct, but I believe all will be good with the team, and we will survive the next two days.\u201d<\/p>\n UAE\u2019s Florian Vermeersch also struggled Thursday, but he said it was fatigue not illness. The big Belgian did his work on the flats and did his best to make the time cut.<\/p>\n \u201cI noticed that [Wellens] was at his limit and couldn\u2019t do much I offered him a few times to go for water bottles, but that\u2019s all I could do,\u201d Vermeersch told Sporza<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s still two days to give, but my morale is fine. I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n McNulty, 28, slipped off the pace early on the 185km Alpine stage from Voiron to Orci\u00e8res-Merlette before race radio confirmed his abandonment with about 40km remaining.<\/p>\n Wellens was later dropped and rolled across the line with barely two minutes to spare before the time limit.<\/p>\n \u201cIn any other race, you would stop, but not at the Tour,\u201d Wellens told Sporza<\/em>. \u201cI am happy that I could finish.\u201d<\/p>\n McNulty was racing his first Tour since 2022, but had fallen ill in recent days.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, despite battling hard to stay in the race, [McNulty], has been forced to abandon,\u201d a team note read. \u201cBrandon had been suffering from illness and leaves the race on stage 18. You\u2019ll be missed, Brandon. Feel better soon.\u201d<\/p>\n The American\u2019s exit came days after a bizarre pre-time trial incident Tuesday after a driver allegedly cut in front of him and slammed on the brakes.<\/p>\n UAE Emirates-XRG team manager Mauro Gianetti told TNT Sports<\/em> that McNulty was riding toward the start when a motorist became agitated behind him, passed, then brake-checked him. McNulty struck the vehicle but escaped serious injury and started the time trial as planned.<\/p>\n The Arizonan lit up the start of the 2026 Tour and played a key role in setting up UAE teammate Isaac del Toro for victory in stage 2. He took key pulls in stage 6 over the Col du Tourmalet to help spring Poga\u010dar to victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/pogacar-loses-key-helper-brandon-mcnulty-as-american-abandons-tour-de-france\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286773507.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated July 23, 2026 11:46AM Just two mountain stages stand between Tadej Poga\u010dar and a record-tying fifth Tour de France title, but his powerhouse UAE Emirates-XRG team is suddenly running short of firepower. Brandon McNulty abandoned on Thursday in stage 18 and Tim Wellens limped home last to barely survive […]<\/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-2058882","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\/2058882","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=2058882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2058882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2058882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2058882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}UAE running thin before Alpe d\u2019Huez<\/h2>\n
McNulty out after falling ill<\/h2>\n