The route for the 2026 UAE Tour will feature two summit finishes and an individual time trial alongside the traditional sprinting opportunities, with Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) expected to lead the GC battle.
The route, which was unveiled on Monday, will take in the traditional Jebel Hafeet summit finish on stage 6, but it will also feature an earlier climbing day on stage 3, finishing atop the Jebel Mobrah.
The GC will also be influenced by the stage 2 time trial, which is short and flat, 12.2km on Al Hudayriyat Island, made for the powerful purists.
The rest of the race is made up of a mixture of sprint and punchy stages, with Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) expected to be the premier sprinter after Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) had to delay his season start.
It might not be a sprinter who claims the first red leader's jersey, though, with stage 1's punchy finish perhaps suiting a rider like Isaac del Toro, who is poised to lead the home squad UAE Team Emirates-XRG in the stead of two-time winner Tadej Pogacar.
Del Toro will be in contention for the overall at the end of the week, too, but will face tough competition, with Grand Tour winners Vingegaard and Evenepoel set to be on the start line. Vingegaard confirmed at last week's Visma media day that he would kick his season off in the Middle East as he attempts both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France later this year.
Evenepoel is targeting just the Tour, omitting the Giro this year, and reports earlier this month suggested he was set to add the UAE Tour to his programme, but the race's Monday press release confirmed that he is one of the riders expected on the start list. He will start his season as early as January 28, though, competing in the Mallorca Challenge race series.
Evenepoel won the UAE Tour in 2023 after runner-up spots on both mountain finishes earned him the red jersey, whilst Vingegaard last raced it in 2021, winning atop Jebel Jais.
The men's UAE Tour takes place February 16-22.
Stage 1: Madinat Zayed Majlis – Liwa Palace (144km)
Stage 1 offers a punchy start to the race, heading through the desert and the Moreeb Dune before an uphill drag up to Liwa Palace, with a 5% gradient on the finishing straight. The ups and downs in the run-in could make this a tough stage, with a punchy rider able to take the spoils over a sprinter, depending on how it's raced.
Stage 2: Al Hudayriyat Island ITT (12.2km)
Stage 2 takes place on Al Hudayriyat Island and will be a short, flat and fast TT, featuring only minimal turns and corners, meaning it will suit the speedy specialists. The gaps won't be huge given the short length, but should see the GC riders battling for seconds already.
Stage 3: Umm al Quwain – Jebel Mobrah (183km)
The first mountain stage of the race comes on stage 3, which will finish atop Jebel Mobrah for the first time. The riders will be climbing for some 15km, with average gradients of 10-12%, but ramps ticking over 17% in places, with the steepest sections coming in the final 6km.
Stage 4: Fujairah – Fujairah (182km)
Finally, a more pure sprinter-friendly stage on stage 4, with a route that crosses the desert and several Emirates before finishing on a flat, wide finishing straight in Fujairah.
Stage 5: Dubai Al Mamzar Park – Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (166km)
The fifth stage is as flat as it gets, with wide, straight roads all the way, making for likely a pretty straightforward day, and another bunch sprint on a 700m finishing straight.
Stage 6: Al Ain Museum – Jebel Hafeet (168km)
It's back to the mountains on stage 6 with the fairly classic Jebel Hafeet stage. It's quite a flat run-in for most of the stage, and then the road goes up for 10km on a winding, hairpinned road, with gradients of around 8-9%, climbing to 11% near the top. Previous winners have included Tadej Pogačar and Adam Yates, though winning on Jebel Hafeet doesn't always translate to a GC win.
Stage 7: Zayed National Museum – Abu Dhabi Breakwater (149km)
The final stage will be for the sprinters again, with the overall likely decided on stage 6. Stage 7 is pan flat around Abu Dhabi, visiting key areas like Yas Island, before finishing in a bunch sprint in the city.
