News | Amstel Gold Race | De Brabantse Pijl | Team • April 17, 2025
Tadej Pogačar to make Amstel Gold Race return this weekend
Pogačar will go back to the race he won in 2023, as UAE Team Emirates-XRG names its teams for Amstel Gold Race and De Brabantse Pijl
After his breathtaking ride to place second at Paris-Roubaix on debut, Tadej Pogačar turns his focus away from the cobbles and towards the Ardennes Classics this weekend. The world champion is set to lead UAE Team Emirates-XRG at the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday, where he will make his first appearance at the Dutch Classic since winning the race in 2023.
There, Pogačar will look to continue his remarkable spring campaign which has seen the 26-year-old win Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders, and finish on the podium at Milano-Sanremo and the ‘Hell of the North.’
The Slovenian will be joined in the Netherlands by a UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad full of climbing talent, as the iconic Cauberg climb is reintroduced into the finale for the first time in almost a decade. First, though, UAE Team Emirates-XRG will look for its first win at De Brabantse Pijl on Friday afternoon.
The race, also known as La Flèche Brabançonne, provides a Belgian aperitif to the block of hilly one-day races that form the Ardennes Classics, with 21 climbs on the menu between Beersel and Overijse.
Tim Wellens claimed third place for UAE Team Emirates-XRG last season, and this time around, the Emirati outfit will be back with a squad that includes the following riders:
– Mikkel Bjerg (Den)
– Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
– António Morgado (Por)
– Jhonatan Narváez (Ecu)
– Florian Vermeersch (Bel)
– Duarte Merivoet (Bel) (Gen Z)
– Gibbe Staes (Bel) (Gen Z)
For Duarte Merivoet and Gibbe Staes, the 1.Pro race provides a brilliant opportunity to race with the WorldTour squad. Staes has made three appearances for UAE Team Emirates-XRG since having to leave the AlUla Tour early in January. The youngster will hope to continue to impress on Friday, whilst Merivoet will make his first outing of the season for the WorldTour squad.
The pair will be joined in their home country by compatriot Florian Vermeersch, who rode to a tremendous fifth-place finish at Paris-Roubaix last weekend. The winter signing for UAE Team Emirates-XRG has enjoyed a great spring Classics campaign to date and was part of a three-up sprint for the final podium place on Sunday.
He, António Morgado and Mikkel Bjerg performed admirably over the cobbles of northern France, and will hope to carry this form across the border.
Selective but not crippling, De Brabantse Pijl route offers a bit of something for everybody, with enough hills to create aggressive racing, without offering an unfair advantage to lightweight climbers. After the early knockings, the race will culminate on a 19.8km-long circuit, which will be completed three times and take in four climbs: the Hertstraat, Mskoesstraat, Holstheide and the S-Bocht.
The latter climb often proves the most selective and stands at 4.2% for 1.3km, enough to create a blockbuster finish at the end of a tough afternoon’s racing.
Two days on from La Flèche Brabançonne, it will be time for the first major Classic of the Ardennes season, with Pogačar raring to go for his return to the Amstel Gold Race.
Pogačar: “We leave the cobbled Classics with our heads high, I think we can be happy with what we did there and there were some great battles on the road.
“The Ardennes races will be a new challenge. They are three hard one-day races packed into a week but I feel we have the team to be able to challenge in each of them. But we will take it one race at a time starting with Amstel Gold and go from there.
“In that race I have some great memories from two years ago when I managed to win, let’s see what’s possible this year.”
Back in 2023, the Slovenian won the Amstel in style, after a ding-dong encounter with podium finishers Tom Pidcock and Ben Healy. The Irishman gave Pogačar a tough challenge before the UAE Team Emirates-XRG man showed Healy a fresh pair of heels and won the race with a nigh-on 30km solo attack. This Sunday, the challenge presented to Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG will be a different one.
After nine years of an alternate course, the traditional Cauberg finish has been reintroduced to the race. Standing at 6.5% for 800m, the Cauberg had brought the curtain down on the Dutch Classic for many a year, with Philippe Gilbert, in particular, becoming a master of its punishing slopes.
However, by 2016, the finish was deemed too predictable, and the race organisers went in search of a new and more volatile route, a move that proved effective when Mathieu van der Poel won one of the most exhilarating editions in 2019.
Six years on, with the likes of Van der Poel and Pogačar lighting up races from 100km out and more, the decision has been made to return the Amstel Gold Race to its traditional finale. The route is no easier, though, with plenty of climbs scattered across the final 50km and sure to create attritional racing.
Just as with De Brabantse Pijl, circuit racing will draw the race to a close, with the final lap taking in the Geulhemmerberg, Kuitenbergweg and the Bemelerberg before winding its way to the Cauberg showdown. Once over the peak of the climb, the riders will have 2.5km of flat asphalt before reaching the finish line. This is a moment that often used to present a to-and-fro battle between those who attacked the climb and those looking to pace themselves back into contention.
Alongside Pogačar, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad will include Tim Wellens, who is set to start his ninth Amstel Gold Race, and a trio of debutants in Jhonatan Narváez, Domen Novak and Pavel Sivakov. The full Emirati squad is as follows:
– Felix Großschartner (AUT)
– Brandon McNulty (USA)
– Jhonatan Narváez (Ecu)
– Domen Novak (Slo)
– Tadej Pogačar (Slo)
– Pavel Sivakov (Fra)
– Tim Wellens (Bel)
