Team announced for GP Miguel Induráin, with Almeida ready for Itzulia Basque Country

As the WorldTour’s one-day specialists have their sights set on the Ronde van Vlaanderen in Belgium, some of the world’s best climbers will head to Spain this weekend for the beginning of an important block of racing in the mountains. In turn, UAE Team Emirates-XRG are ready to tackle the GP Miguel Induráin and Itzulia Basque Country with a squad full of climbing talent.

First up for the riders will be the one-day GP Miguel Induráin on Saturday, 5 April – a race that always delivers an entertaining spectacle – before the Itzulia Basque Country takes place between Tuesday, 7 April and Saturday, 12 April. The latter is the second WorldTour stage race of the season in Spain and will see UAE Team Emirates-XRG look to defend the title won through Juan Ayuso last time out.

At the GP Miguel Induráin, it will be UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Brandon McNulty who will start the race as defending champion, after his fine performance in 2024. On that day, the American climber outsprinted Maxim Van Gils for the victory after an afternoon of non-stop attacking.

Having recently celebrated his birthday, the 27-year-old will wear the race no.1 on his back on Saturday but be joined by a host of riders capable of putting their opponents on the back foot. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad for the 1.Pro race is as follows:

Igor Arrieta (Spa)
Isaac del Toro (Mex)
Felix Großschartner (AUT)
Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
Brandon McNulty (USA)
Marc Soler (Spa)
Pablo Torres (Spa)

Featuring a series of punchy climbs in the finale, the GP Miguel Induráin often tears a peloton full of hopefuls to shreds, ending in a survival of the fittest before the downhill finish to Estella. Last year, it was McNulty who came out on top, and we could see another attacking race this time around.

In the UAE Team Emirates-XRG ranks, Marc Soler comes off the back of a strong performance at his home Volta a Catalunya, in which he helped Ayuso to a great stage win and finished as the best Catalan rider. He will be joined by Isaac del Toro, who triumphed at Milano-Torino just a couple of weeks ago, and is only getting stronger as his experience grows in the WorldTour ranks.

For Soler, the Catalan will hope to continue where he left off at Itzulia Basque Country, with the 31-year-old taking fourth place behind Ayuso’s victory last year. Added to his seventh-place finish in 2022, the six-day affair is clearly a race which suits the experienced rider, and this time around he will look to support the ambitions of debutant João Almeida.

The Portuguese has enjoyed a period of recovery after a brutal edition of Paris-Nice, which yielded a fabulous stage victory atop La Loge des Gardes. Returning to racing in the Basque Country, the 26-year-old will lead a UAE Team Emirates-XRG side that includes much of the team from GP Miguel Induráin:

João Almeida (Por)
Igor Arrieta (Spa)
Isaac del Toro (Mex)
Felix Großschartner (AUT)
Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
Brandon McNulty (USA)
Marc Soler (Spa)

Itzulia Basque Country is a race that UAE Team Emirates-XRG have enjoyed in the past, with Ayuso’s victory in 2024 backed up by Soler in fourth and Del Toro in seventh. That is not to mention the podium placings of Dan Martin and Tadej Pogačar in 2019 and 2021, respectively, with the latter pipping Primoź Roglič to an impressive uphill stage victory.

As the results indicate, this race is a delight for the climbers, with the Basque Country packing a plethora of punchy climbs and leg-numbing mountains, enough to separate the best from the rest. This year’s route is no different.

After a flat individual time trial on the opening day and a stage which could fall to the sprinters on day two, Itzulia Basque Country truly gets into gear on stage 3. With 3,035m of elevation gain to tackle across 157km, stage 3 will be the first real showdown of the race and is set to end with a 1.4km-long climb at 10%. If that isn’t enough to whet the appetite, stages 4, 5 and 6 all harbour their own difficulties which will no doubt have any sprinters on the startlist heading for the exit door.

Stages 4 and 5 both hold around 2,800m of climbing before the general classification is decided for good on the sixth and final day of racing. Beginning and ending in Eibar, the peloton will climb over 3,500m across a 153.6km-long course, which includes seven categorised climbs and plenty of scope for attacks. The final climb of the race will top out with almost 20km to ride, with most of the tough tests encountered early in the day.

Sports director Andrej Hauptman will guide the team at GP Miguel Induráin, before being joined by fellow sports director Simone Pedrazzini in Itzulia Basque Country.

Looking ahead to this trademark tough test in northern Spain, Almeida was full of excitement heading into his debut.

Almeida: “We go into Basque Country with a very strong team. It will be the first time I race here so I’m excited to take it on. The passion for cycling there is something special and the fans really get behind everybody. It’s a famously hard race but we have a team for the job and full of options which is an advantage. The course isn’t ideal for me but I’ll do what I can.

“I was very pleased to take a victory in Paris-Nice, it was a particularly sweet one. We’ll be hoping for more of that at La Itzulia.”