For the 109^th edition of the Giro d'Italia, UAE Team Emirates-XRG will rely on Adam Yates as captain of an ambitious and highly competitive team. From the team car, directions will come from sports directors Fabio Baldato, Marco Marcato and Manuele Mori, while Yates will leverage his extensive experience in the race nicknamed La Corsa Rosa.

At his side will be Igor Arrieta, Mikkel Bjerg, Jhonatan Narváez, Marc Soler, Jay Vine and two Grand Tour debutants, Jan Christen and António Morgado.

Being the first Grand Tour of the season, the Giro d'Italia is a race in which UAE Team Emirates-XRG has achieved numerous successes in recent years. The United Arab Emirates team has finished on the podium in each of the last three editions, with Tadej Pogačar's victory in 2024, João Almeida's third place in 2023 and Isaac del Toro's second place last season.

The team's first stage victory in a Grand Tour came at the 2017 Giro d'Italia, with current sports director Jan Polanc securing a memorable victory on the Etna stage. Since then, UAE Team Emirates-XRG has won another 16 stages at the Giro, thanks to riders like Pogačar, Del Toro and Brandon McNulty.

Yates: "I'm quite happy with how my preparation for the Giro is going. The victory at O Gran Caminho was a good test and I had a good block with the team in Sierra Nevada, so I think as a group we're ready. João Almeida's absence will slightly change our strategy, but we still have great ambitions and want to achieve results. Personally, I feel we're in good shape and if things go the right way we can aim for the general classification and animate the race."

At 33 years old, Adam Yates arrives at the Giro d'Italia fresh from winning the general classification at Gran Caminho last month. There, the British climber reached 34 career victories, sending an important signal ahead of a great opportunity in Italy.

It has been nine years since Yates' debut at the 2017 Giro d'Italia, where the Bury rider finished ninth in the general classification, securing seven top-ten finishes in stages. Upon his return to the Giro last year, Yates played a crucial role in Del Toro's excellent performance, expressing all his potential in the final week.

In his three complete seasons with UAE Team Emirates-XRG, the 33-year-old has won a stage at both the Tour de France (2023) and the Vuelta a España (2024), with only the Giro d'Italia missing from his palmares to complete the set. Yates, a former podium winner and holder of the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, is no stranger to sustained challenges over three weeks and the Briton will start the race full of optimism.

The Grand Tour debutants Jan Christen and António Morgado already boast 15 professional victories between them and will not shy away from the challenge. The experience of their teammates will be crucial in tackling their first three-week races.

For experience, the two need not look beyond Marc Soler, who has competed in 16 Grand Tours throughout his long career. Still only 32 years old, the Spaniard will make his debut at the Corsa Rosa with UAE Team Emirates-XRG and, with last year's Vuelta a España stage victory still fresh in his memory, Soler will certainly know how to seize his opportunities.

Jay Vine has already participated twice in the Giro d'Italia with UAE Team Emirates-XRG and, during 2023 and 2025, the Australian has secured four top-10 finishes in individual time trials. The Australian national time trial champion will have his eyes firmly fixed on this year's time trial in the tenth stage.

The only Grand Tour competed so far by Igor Arrieta was last year's Giro d'Italia, in which the young Spaniard played an important role in Del Toro's success, also finishing fourth in a breakaway stage. It was a good debut for the 21-year-old, who will look to repeat it this year.

Finally, the Giro d'Italia has been firmly in the sights of both Jhonatan Narváez and Mikkel Bjerg since both crashed at the Santos Tour Down Under at the start of the season. This will be Bjerg's seventh Grand Tour and third Giro d'Italia, with the Danish rider having been a valuable member of Tadej Pogačar's winning contingent two years ago.

For Narváez, he returns to the Giro d'Italia after his excellent performance in 2024. That year, the Ecuadorian beat Pogačar to win the first stage and wore the first Maglia Rosa of the race. With three other top-10 finishes in that edition and a further stage victory since 2020, Narváez has more than the pedigree to perform well in the pink race.