Team tactics
UAE Team Emirates Squad Breakdown
“The team and the squad is sort of split into two groups.”
Tour de France · 27s
How NBC Sports' analysts use the Sandbox AR system to break down the 2026 Tour de France. 128 example clips — each cut to a single moment, tagged breakaway & peloton / sprint finish / elevation & gradient / time gaps / route map / team tactics / wind & echelon / rider profile, with what the AR showed and the analyst's point.
“The team and the squad is sort of split into two groups.”
“The first part of that course is flat, it's fast and that's where these bigger uh engine room uh big diesels are going to be more on the front of the the train.”
“It used to be when Brent and I were racing, every single person would pull through.”
“You might just see a guy like Yates, who's going to be so hard to draft off anyways because he's so small, just sit on the back and then just make his way to the front on the climbing section of the course.”
“How close to the finish should we expect to see him take off and solo away?”
“This is Vingegaard's team. Many of them familiar sights to us that have watched the Tour de France before. Notably some new additions.”
“It's almost a carbon copy, you uh Visma and UAE, like they have their powerhouse here, they have their climbers back here.”
“We knew the breakaway was going to be a big part of the day and going to be a headline the first couple of hours.”
“Very good operation from Team Jayco AlUla. Mauro Schmid, Luke Plapp putting two of their strong men up there, really, really helpful in a break of 18 guys to have a teammate up there.”
“Who's best on GC? And right now that is this guy, EF Education EasyPost, my man Alex Baudin. He is at 1 minute and 7 seconds. That's going to be a bit of a problem for this breakaway.”
“This guy fought hard to get in that breakaway and he's a this stage is perfect for him, that finish with the climb. Fast sprinter, he's going to be a tough guy to beat on the line.”
“Mads Pedersen, we saw him the ease that he almost had to go across so late in the in this breakaway fight to get there. You know he's on form.”
“These guys, anyone but Alex Baudin, they are going to be throwing the hate at him. They're they're going to be looking at him, just spitting at it saying, 'Dude, get out of here!'”
“Jonas Vingegaard knows if they if that breakaway wins, he loses his jersey. He wants to get Alex Baudin back. That's why you're not seeing that time gap stretch out.”
“Tadej Pogacar, Team UAE, they're actually quite happy with this... Jonas Vingegaard and his team, they are taking some responsibility for that leader's jersey.”
“Jonas Vingegaard, he does not want to give up that yellow jersey. You saw how happy he was, how emotional he was to take that yellow jersey.”
“Fuga de la fuga, that's like the breakaway of the breakaway. This breakaway is going to start attacking each other in hopes to distance Alex Baudin.”
“One of the first things you hear as a fan is how complicated a stage can be... Over 100 degrees the temperatures are.”
“There are no GC teams up there in the break.”
“Who's best on GC and how far is he down? And right now, that is this man right here, Jordan Jegat.”
“It's such an advantage to have multiple teammates in these big breaks because if you have a teammate, you can sit at the back, you can hide a little bit, let them patrol the front.”
“I would look for further away on maybe the Cat 1 for him to launch an attack, try to get the jump on the rest of this breakaway and then Baudin, that'll make that'll give him a sit.”
“It is the French National Champion, Romain Grégoire, what a storybook day for him wearing the national jersey.”
“He might try to launch out before those climbs. Get a couple if he can get a couple of minute barrier... That way he can start those climbs with a bit of a gap, ride his own tempo.”
“These are some of the best climbers in the race and Teaman Arensman, we've seen him win mountain stages at the Tour de France as well as Kevin Vauquelin.”
“The fact that that gap is that small, what I said on Stage 9 means that UAE wants the breakaway.”
“Julian Alaphilippe is a good intro to this break in that this is a classy break at the Tour de France for a sprint stage.”
“All really powerful guys that are doing more than just getting that TV time. They're up there in this tailwind, which is really notable also for this stage and and making a run at staying away to the line.”
“What their tactic was is they were trying to put someone up the road so that they didn't have to pull and also stack the breakaway with strong riders so that it makes it harder for the other teams to pull.”
“Noticeably absent from pulling on the front of the peloton is Alpecin. I think they're trying to keep all of their powder dry for their final sprint lead out to deliver Jasper Philipsen.”
“The fact that they're playing this tactic that TJ just described is shows a little bit, I don't know if it's desperation, but maybe you could go as far to saying that.”
“Can Julian Alaphilippe win from the break today?”
“My sleep performance is a little bit better than my than my analyst. The average strain though, maybe it's because Brent's getting after it a little bit further.”
“I mean, I'm just operating on a whole other level than you guys today. I mean, I'm I'm clearly winning at life.”
“Peloton in chase right now, they've got the rest of the morning here to chase and see which of the sprinters might possibly catch Julian Alaphilippe and the three other leaders in the break.”
“Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the face.”
“They can have their team cars behind them because the gap is big enough to the peloton. These guys up here do not have their team car.”
“Philipsen got slipped himself in here with some teammates. Tom Pidcock with a stacked squad of teammates.”
“Who's the highest rated GC rider in the break? ... Tom Pidcock.”
“This is a disaster right now for Lidl-Trek.”
“It's a good play to have him up there... he's also in a chance with a stage win.”
“This is a case of just kind of letting their dogs eat.”
“Brandon McNulty's been one of the biggest beneficiaries of being a teammate with Tadej Pogacar.”
“Ben Healy, he is a breakaway specialist, this climb is perfect for him.”
“I don't even see Ben Healy or really anyone in here except maybe Tom Pidcock holding his wheel.”
“If he is with these guys through that sprint, he will definitely take those 25 points and then he's really back in the mix.”
“I do not think that Philipsen is going to make it over this climb... But the points don't just stop at number one, number two, number three.”
“This needs to happen. Mads Pedersen up to the front.”
“Decathlon does have this guy, Tiesj Benoot, up the road and he was just sitting on. So he was a passenger of this breakaway, not a driver.”
“They were pulling in the bunch to try to get that breakaway back, but as we just saw, they stopped pulling. So now we're starting to get counter-attacks in between.”
“Alex Baudin against the likes of Jasper Stuyven, uh, Tarling or even Mathieu van der Poel, he is not going to be able to win a sprint against these guys. So they're trying to get more guys up there.”
“The intention is get in the breakaway. If there's a breakaway, you need to be up there and be up there with numbers and give yourself the opportunity to win.”
“Alpecin, they have Mathieu van der Poel, a real candidate to win. Behind him somewhere is Jasper Philipsen, still desperately wanting that first stage win of this Tour.”
“Van der Poel up here, we saw him actually riding through, pushing some wind, which is an interesting indication that his sprinter Jasper Philipsen further behind has maybe said, 'Ah, I'm okay not taking those green jersey points and Van der Poel, you go for the stage.'”
“When you see the gap is still a minute and just, you know, five minutes ago it was 30 seconds. It actually would have been a great chance for for um, Team Alpecin to come to the front of that group with Jasper Philipsen, close down that gap, give him a chance to sprint.”
“They are going down. When Decathlon was on the front, they were keeping this gap between 30 and 40 seconds and then I would have said, 'Okay, it's advantage peloton and I think the sprint, we would have, it would have come down to a sprint.'”
“I said Alpecin has the most to gain by winning or bringing it to a sprint with Jasper Philipsen because not only do they have a chance at the stage, that's the best chance for the for the green jersey. Now Simmons is up here, he has teammate obviously Mads Pedersen. He Mads Pedersen likes that this breakaway staying away.”
“Right now Mads Pedersen, who's been in that green for about two weeks, has a lead of 31 points. So that math right there tells you there's a lot of potential for that to change and that is if some of these other teams can get it together.”
“If he doesn't get points today, it's not going to happen. And and as it stands right now, as this gap is coming out, that's looking less and less likely. And frankly, I don't think he has the horsepower with his team in that yellow jersey group and his teammates behind, you saw the images of the Biniam Girmay group, uh, they're probably not going to get back to the yellow jersey group.”
“He had Ben Healy on the front. He had already scored points over the Quad Affair and the Telegraph.”
“He had Ben Healy setting pace on the front. Healy now dropped from this breakaway, and Carapaz also going for maximum points on the Galibier but also clearly for the stage victory.”
“Right now that gap is at four and a half minutes. If that gap stays at four and a half minutes, he's in with a real shot.”
“Striking out, splicing this group down even more and then you see there right now, only the elite of the elite climbers in Hinley and Kuss able to stay with him.”
“This is full commitment.”
“No dead weight now in this move. These three together, all extremely powerful climbers.”
“He absolutely has high hopes. Obviously with his leader Jonas Vingegaard out, uh the entire Visma squad has been free to fly.”
“He was joined earlier in the day by three teammates... who were just driving this breakaway to get maximum time. And uh Sepp Kuss obviously the last man standing there.”
“This breakaway is going to get sliced up, cut up, diced up, different variations.”
“These climbers, they're going to want to get rid of these guys heading into the in the climbing section because they're not going to want to come to the line with these guys.”
“They're keeping that gap at 3 minutes and 30 seconds. That shows that Tadej's not interested in giving the yellow jersey away.”
“They could wait on top of that climb... Remco or Florian could attack up to their teammates, link up with them at the top and have a draft into the finish to try to catch some GC guys by surprise.”
“I honestly think it's a little bit of a bet hedge.”
“Let's start out with the one we saw in green there, Mads Pedersen. What's he doing out front?”
“You are just thinking, thank you Mads, just taking matters into your own hands, putting himself in the early breakaway.”
“This gives him an awesome chance to take those sprint jersey points, 60 kilometers into the stage.”
“Obviously Alpecin and NSN, they were on the front before because they're pulling for their sprinters Girmay and Philipsen who are also interested in the green jersey.”
“That leaves a point differential gap that these guys aren't happy with.”
“We still wanted to be in that break, so you're seeing a flurry of attacks from the peloton.”
“There's a team incentive for Victor being up there, tell us about it.”
“What a guy to have on your side if you're Jonas Vingegaard.”
“It's in service of his leader Jonas Vingegaard... they want to give themselves the best chance to have a support rider for Jonas Vingegaard over the climb.”
“A rider like Campenaerts, you put him up the road... he can lose four minutes by the top of the Tourmalet, and then Jonas Vingegaard has support on the other side of the Tourmalet.”
“Tipping the intentions of Visma as this race gets longer, really the first true high mountain challenge of this tour.”
“It's kind of a mess, it's kind of even hard to see what's going on because there's so many guys in here.”
“Once they're through safety, they'll move to the back and that's when you're going to see the sprint lead-out guys with their sprint leaders.”
“He was out front by about that much when he won in Stage 5. He looked like he was clearly the best one.”
“Olav Kooij, he is hungry. I mean he is ready for this and he's he's had to wait.”
“He gets on the wheel of Mathieu van der Poel, he'll take him straight to the line.”
“He is missing that last guy. So Jasper Stuyven is going to be slotting into that final position for him.”
“He's going to have to stay more in the back of these teams, kind of use the other teams' lead-outs.”
“Obviously, we have the yellow jersey held by Tadej Pogacar UAE. This is the jersey of the overall leader, the guy with the lowest accumulated time from all the stages.”
“That's the winner of the points. So there's intermediate points along the way as well as points for the finish of each stages. This is the more the sprinters' jersey.”
“Mads Pedersen is out front by a ways. He actually has a lead of 59 points, which is pretty good, but there's 95 points up for grabs here today.”
“This green jersey at the Tour de France is missing from his palmares.”
“He's going to have to go in those early breakaways, get some intermediate sprints, and then if he can win a hilly stage like he did the other day, that helps with the points.”
“Mads Pedersen, he's going to go in the breakaways. He's going to win stages that these other sprinters are not capable of winning.”
“You see all the sprinters in the mix that want a chance at this green jersey, going to the line almost it's like the finish of the stage.”
“He took that intermediate sprint from the peloton.”
“He's had tremendous success in this competition at the other two Grand Tours... But the four times he's worn the jersey here, that's all taken place this year.”
“Let's go back to 2012, TJ Van Garderen, he talked about the white jersey, top rider under the age of 25. There is a younger TJ, somewhere south of 25, winning that award in 2012.”
“Juan Ayuso, you see here, he is an outright GC leader for the Tour de France and he's had an awesome first week of racing.”
“This team has a lot of responsibility with this dual priorities. They have a really strong team, we talk about team workers like our American Quinn Simmons, Mathias Vacek.”
“A lot of young riders chasing the podium including Ayuso.”
“Honestly, I don't think Juan Ayuso is podium capable. But, you know, honestly, this team doesn't really have to split their resources that much because they can chase both.”
“Ayuso even thinking about getting to the podium is new for him because he was on Tadej Pogacar's team recently and he wasn't really allowed to do those kind of things.”
“The team and the squad is sort of split into two groups.”
“The first part of that course is flat, it's fast and that's where these bigger uh engine room uh big diesels are going to be more on the front of the the train, keeping the pace high.”
“You might just see a guy like Yates who's going to be so hard to draft off anyways because he's so small, just sit on the back and then just make his way to the front on the climbing section of the course.”
“20 kilometers when you only one guy has to finish fast at the end, that is absolutely not going to be the case. If you're a little bit off, poof, see you later.”
“Some of the climbers like Yates and Del Toro will probably hit out with Tade in the wheel to give a spring launch for Tade on that final climb.”
“This is Vingegaard's team. Many of them familiar sights to us that have watched the Tour de France before. Notably some some new additions.”
“It's almost a carbon copy. You uh Visma and UAE like they have their powerhouse here, they have their climbers back here, they have they have their main guy, Jonas Vingegaard here who's probably going to be on the back.”
“I would have said Tade just because of Tade Pogacar. Like almost he's he's enough force to turn the whole tide. He isn't just a strong current in the ocean, he is the tide.”
“We got a good mix of a couple of climbers. We got some uh strong hard hitting, burly lead out guys. All mainly in support of this guy Jasper Philipsen, but today they're going to be working for Mathieu van der Poel.”
“These guys are no better guys in the business to position Matthew Van der Poel for these very technical circuit coming into the stage.”
“These are going to be your guys to get him there. Jasper Philipsen, usually Van der Poel is helping out Philipsen in the lead out. It's going to be the tables are going to be turned. Philipsen going to be helping out the other star of the team.”
“The GC actually got separated a lot. There's guys five minutes down already. There's guys two minutes down, three minutes down and all everywhere in between.”
“Tade Pogacar wants those bonus seconds, so he's going to put his team, Niels Politt on the front. Obviously we just talked about Mathieu Van der Poel, he wants to win this stage. This stage is perfect for Mathieu Van der Poel, so that's why he's going to put Silvan Dillier in the front.”
“Whatever the time gap is there, you're not only going to be able to pull in, you know, much less over uh the the technical final portions of the circuit. So I think the time gap is going to be held quite close.”
“I don't think no because it's 12 seconds and it's only a 10 second bonus. So say Tade Pogacar wins the stage and Jonas Vingegaard gets fourth, you know, he's he's reduced that deficit to two seconds, but he's actually going to have to put distance in between him.”
“All these teams and riders definitely interested getting out there fighting for those KOM points.”
“I don't think that's going to happen today seeing the peloton, uh knowing the finale of of the end of today's stage, but still nicely done uh for all these riders getting up in uh in the mix.”
“The very first thing you always have to ask yourself as a director in the race car is who is best on GC. Right now, the best on GC is Caja Rural, he is at 1 minute 12 seconds. So he's actually in the virtual yellow jersey right now.”
“It's his team, his Pinarello Q365 team that have done all of the chasing so far.”
“The team of Tade Pogacar, the team of Mathieu Van der Poel, they haven't had to pull in the wind at all. So they must be very, very confident in their leader Tom Pidcock for this stage.”
“As they come into the Cat 2 over here, the pace is just naturally going to heat up. You know, we're going to see the GC teams of Pogacar, Vingegaard, they're going to be riding at the front, not necessarily even to to close the break deliberately, just their position fighting.”
“It is a safety issue also. If they thin out the bunch, right now Tade Pogacar's team, Jonas Vingegaard's team, they they haven't had to lift a finger. They're letting they're letting Pinarello do all of the work. That's keeping them fresh so what they can do, they can even put their team on the front for that climb, thin out the bunch because like Brent said, you have that descent, you're going to have all that traffic furniture going through that gigantic metropolitan city of Barcelona into that finishing circuit. A lot safer to do with say 60 or 70 riders than a full peloton of 200.”
“Right now the momentum's on Vingegaard's side and Visma Lease a Bike. Tade's going to want to swing that momentum back in his direction.”