The scene around the UAE Team Emirates-XRG bus at the starts and finishes of the Vuelta a España, compared to a week ago, when Tadej Pogačar was still present, may be much quieter than before. But the squad continues to fight their corner in the race – and even after Pogačar’s abandon and the end of their GC options, to stay alert to developments in the overall classification battle.
On that front, Pogačar’s abandon has seen Enric Mas (Movistar) first inherit the overall lead, but then prove himself more than worthy of holding that position in the two summit finishes that followed.
Mas now holds a 1:45 advantage on closest chaser Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), 45 seconds more than when Pogačar made his untimely exit. Yet with three summit finishes, the first on Saturday at La Pandera, and a long time trial still to come, there are still multiple options for the top spot in Granada on September 13.
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“For me, Enric is the favourite,” UAE heads sports director Joxean Fernández Matxin tells Cyclingnews. “Roglič is a very important rival, he’s won the Vuelta four times, he’s got this race dialled, and that’s why Enric has so much respect for him.
“But I’m convinced that Enric is a few percentage points above him right now, not just because of the time gap, but also because of his mentality and motivation. Because he’s really interested in winning.
Matxin says he has a good relationship with Mas, a rider whom he’s known since Mas was racing at Klein Constantia in 2016, the Soudal-QuickStep feeder team, at a time when Matxin was a scout for the WorldTour squad. After Mas turned full-time pro in 2017, the two have continued to cross paths constantly.
“When he knows he can win, he’s the kind of rider who rises to the occasion. And this is one of them,” Matxin said. “So I’m convinced he’s going to be a top candidate from now on.
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“He knows that Roglič is a very important rival in the time trial, so every day that he can be, he’ll have to be more aggressive, because he’s got lots to win and very little to lose.”
There’s a popular opinion right now that Mas has become a different kind of rider to previous years, but Matxin feels that the 31-year-old remains the same. “He’s always been equally good; it’s just that some moments are not as good as others,” Matxin reasons.
“Not all years and races are different, and we shouldn’t think that just because a rider has been a long way out of the running in one race, means he can’t be up there in the next.”
The opposite is also true, and one rider who has been off the boil in this year’s Vuelta compared to 2025 is João Almeida. Second last year and even able to outstrip Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) at some points in the Vuelta, Almeida has been a shadow of the racer he was in 2025 this year.
“He had a virus at the start of April and May, and he couldn’t get a good enough training base to be in the Tour,” Matxin explained. “The fall he then had in the Tour de Pologne set him back nearly two weeks in terms of training, so he came here happy to help. But now he’s looking for that base condition and will try and get into breaks in the meantime.”
Almeida’s teammate Jay Vine is another UAE rider who’s been in increasingly poor shape following his strong start in Sierra Nevada. Matxin described his condition as “feeling empty – he was unable to go on, and that’s all there is.”
But if Vine’s form has suffered in the second half, heading the opposite direction as the race has progressed, the US rider Kevin Vermaerke has been regularly in the breaks and on the front of the bunch.
“He’s doing great,” Matxin says. “He’s going well, got a great attitude… when we ask him to help, he helps, when we ask him to fight for the stage, he fights. We’re very pleased with him, not just because of his performance, but because of his attitude, and sometimes the attitude is more valuable than the performance.”
The UAE rider whom all the fans are thinking about, though, even if he’s no longer at the Vuelta, is of course Pogačar, but Matxin says they continue to give priority to “Tadej the person, not Tadej the cyclist.”
There is no news right now on his current date of return, Matxin says, with the focus purely on his recovery from his Vuelta injuries.
While UAE continue to search for stage wins in the Vuelta – “all or any or interesting to us”, Matxin says, another Slovenian rider, Jacob Omrzel (Bahrain Victorious) has already clinched just such a victory at the summit finish of Calar Alto.
In the process, aged 20, Omrzel has managed to become the second-youngest ever Vuelta a España stage winner – ahead of Pogačar in 2019 – and clinch his first ever victory in a Grand Tour.
Matxin, for one, was very impressed.
“He’s a rider with a big future and if, on top of that, if he keeps on winning stages like he did yesterday against top riders and spending his energy exactly as he needs too, never overdoing it in the break, even more so.”
“That goes to show he’s just strong for his age. He’s also very intelligent, and he’s got that extra per cent which only the top riders really have,” Matxin concluded. “He’s definitely a rider to watch.”
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