In 2009, Columbia-HTC set the record for the most wins by a team in a single season with 85 victories. That would take over a decade to be broken, with UAE Team Emirates XRG smashing through the benchmark in 2025, ending the season with a massive total of 95 wins.
Two legendary accomplishments, but domination doesn’t always look the same, so we dug into the numbers to compare how each team did it.
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Sprint success vs breakaway bonanza
Columbia-HTC were far and away the most successful squad in 2009, with the next best Saxo Bank with just over half as many wins at 44. They were spearheaded by sprinters and one-day specialists, notably Mark Cavendish, André Greipel and Edvald Boasson Hagen.
If you remove the three general classification titles and eight national championships, 82% of their victories came thanks to their sprinting qualities, whether it be mano-a-mano or in a large bunch. Cavendish ruled the roost with 23 wins – and two team time-trials that, let’s be real, he wasn’t contributing the most to. He came out on top in Milan-San Remo as well as a whopping six Tour de France stages and three Giro stages. He swept up sprints in stage races including the Tour de Suisse, Tour of California and Tour of Qatar too.
Greipel wasn’t that far behind with 20 wins, an impressive haul considering he spent three months on the sidelines. He scored victories at the Bayern-Rundfahrt, Tour of Austria and Ster Elektrotoer and one-day races such as the Philadelphia International Championships and Paris-Bourges. While Cavendish was sent to the Giro and Tour, Greipel went hunting at the Vuelta a España and took home four sprint stages.
The next most lucrative type of stage for the team was individual time-trials, with six of their 85 wins against the clock, mostly thanks to Tony Martin, followed by four solo breakaways and two final kilometre attacks.
It was a completely different story for UAE Team Emirates XRG. Rainbow-clad Tadej Pogačar understandably topped the standings with 18 victories but Isaac del Toro came close with 16, and João Almeida was third most successful with ten, to take the team far ahead of Soudal-QuickStep, who were second most successful this year with 54 wins. UAE scored three Monuments in 2025 as well as 14 Grand Tour stages and the Tour de France, and they came close to an even bigger year with second overall at both the Giro and Vuelta with Del Toro and Almeida.
Whereas Columbia-HTC sought success in the sprints, UAE Team Emirates’s best method of attack was through a solo attack for a massive 31 of their non-GC or national championship victories. Pogačar understandably bagged the most with ten to his name, followed by Del Toro and his impressive surge to end the season with five. Those long solo attacks have become a signature move for those two, with most of their races boiling down to how far out they’ll go, but it was actually Almeida who launched the longest raid of the lot with his 49km assault on Stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse.
The fast finishes weren’t too far behind though, with 29 of their wins through sprints, followed by nine final kilometre attacks and three individual time-trials. There were a couple that fit into an extra special category with both the GP Montréal and Ordiziako Klasika being a pair teammates celebrating together at the line. Perhaps it’s these two instances that showcase their dominance the most. Montréal ended in a 1-2 with Brandon McNulty and Pogačar, while it was a podium sweep at Prueba Villafranca – Ordiziako Klasika where Igor Arrieta claimed his first pro win just in front of Del Toro, with António Morgado coming in 16 seconds later.
The two teams unsurprisingly vastly differ in general classifications results. Only the three general classifications went the way of Columbia-HTC. They briefly led the Giro and Vuelta thanks to victory on the opening day TTT in the former and Grepiel’s sprint in the latter, but their focus was stages over GC. Meanwhile UAE Team Emirates XRG couldn’t stop themselves in multi-day outings. A huge 17 stage races tipped in their favour through ten different riders, largely down to Pogačar, Almeida and Brandon McNulty, who all won three, including Pogačar’s victory at the biggest of them all.
Spreading the spoils
Breakaways are a solo effort. One man with his head in the wind. Which is why there’s a bigger number of riders to have won for UAE this year compared to HTC in 2009, who thrived with a legendary sprint train. For Cavendish, this was the season he paired up with leadout extraordinaire Mark Renshaw. They were such a well-oiled machine that it made sense for everyone to focus on stages and sweep up wins in this manner, as opposed to sending individuals up the road for the breakaway lottery. But still they had 16 different riders able to notch a win. That’s no mean feat.
It is less than UAE Team Emirates XRG, but not by too much, they had 20 different men notch a win this season, including the 11 different riders winning via breakaway or solo attack.
Interestingly, while most of Columbia-HTC’s victories came in France and Italy, for UAE Team Emirates it was Italy and Spain – quiet year for Pogačar then right?
Eyes on the future
After HTC-Columbia’s record season, they went on to take 65 victories in 2010 and 56 in 2011 before disbanding. Cavendish departed to spend a season with Team Sky in 2012, while Greipel moved to Lotto in 2011.
UAE Team Emirates XRG will obviously want to continue their dominance on the sport and, sadly for many fans interested in competitive racing, look set to continue on that level for the next few seasons at least. Things will only look a tad different for them in 2026, with Juan Ayuso gone, but they have recruited Benoît Cosnefroy and Kevin Vermaerke, and promoted Adrià Pericas to their WorldTour ranks.
Pogačar meanwhile is undoubtably going to continue his reign barring injury and Del Toro is only going to get better, and will almost certainly not let Simon Yates ride clear again.
