Welcome back to another edition of Pro Log. Here’s a rundown of the latest results before we get started:
- UAE Tour Women, Overall, Sun 8th February: 1st Elisa Longo Borghini, UAE Team ADQ, 13h 06min 32sec; 2nd Monica Trinca Colonel, Jayco-AlUla, +16sec; 3rd Femke de Vries, Visma-Lease a Bike, +17sec.
- UAE Tour Women, Stage 4, Sun 8th February: 1st Elisa Longo Borghini, UAE Team ADQ, 4h 13min 04sec; 2nd Monica Trinca Colonel, Jayco-AlUla, +12sec; 3rd Femke de Vries, Visma-Lease a Bike, +14sec.
- Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, Overall, Sun 8th February: 1st Remco Evenepoel, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, 13h 10min 12sec; 2nd João Almeida, UAE Team Emirates XRG, +31sec; 3rd Giulio Pellizzari, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +34sec.
- Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, Stage 5, Sun 8th February: 1st Raúl García, Movistar, 2h 09min 44sec; 2nd Emil Herzog, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +00sec; 3rd Jasper Schoofs, Soudal-QuickStep, +00sec.
Goodbye Discovery+, hello HBO Max
Warner Bros Discovery’s global streaming service HBO Max is being launched in the UK and Ireland on Thursday 26th March. As well as TV and film content from HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios and Max Originals, it will be the new home of TNT Sports streaming.
It won’t make it more affordable though, the HBO Max TNT Sports package still costs £30.99 a month.
Jonas Vingegaard to skip UAE Tour
Jonas Vingegaard has scratched the UAE Tour from his calendar to give him more time to recover from last week’s crash as well as an illness.
The Dane said that ‘it is better to fully recover first so that I can then focus on my next goals’. He’s now expected to get his season underway at the Volta a Catalunya before his debut at the Giro d’Italia in May.
With Vingegaard now out, the UAE Tour, which begins on 16th February, will likely be a head to head between Isaac del Toro and Remco Evenepoel. Speaking of…
Remco Evenepoel is Red(Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) hot
It has been nothing short of a dream start for Remco Evenepoel and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. He won his first three one-day races in Mallorca, winning in very different fashion each time.
He then went to his first stage race of the season, the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, to take on his former teammate João Almeida, and won two out of the five stages as well as the GC. Whisper it, but his quest for another Tour de France podium is looking on track.
Is AI Bradley Wiggins your next coach?
Former Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins is one of six ‘AI mentors’ for a new app dubbed ‘the Coachsters’ alongside Dame Sarah Storey and Sir Steve Redgrave. Put together through interviews with the former athletes, the app turns their stories into knowledge for users on the likes of training and nutrition.
Wiggins says it ‘is about the conversations I believe more athletes should be having: how to train with intent, how to deal with pressure and expectation, how to handle setbacks, and how to think clearly about performance, identity, and life in sport – not just the good days, but the difficult ones too’.
The ‘Lite’ version of the app is £5 a month with three questions in that timeframe. The ‘Pro’ version is £22 a month for unlimited questions and ‘Elite’ is £39 for the same as Pro but with exclusive interviews and four webcasts a year.
Elisa Longo Borghini wins UAE Tour Women
First stage race, first win for Elisa Longo Borghini in 2026. The Italian defended her title at the UAE Tour for her third overall victory here and second with home team UAE Team ADQ. The GC was decided, as usual, on Jebel Hafeet after Lorena Wiebes won all the sprint stages, and Longo Borghini broke clear to take the victory solo.
Monica Trinca Colonel (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and Femke de Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike) completed the podium 16sec and 17sec down respectively.
Soudal-QuickStep rider hit by car driver
Gianmarco Garofoli revealed on social media that he had been hit by a car driver while riding in Tenerife. The 23-year-old, who had just finished racing the AlUla Tour before arriving on the island, said he felt helpless, fragile and ‘completely at the mercy of something I couldn’t control’.
‘I was hit by a hit-and-run driver,’ he said, ‘he was coming from behind, speeding, over 100 kmh, well over the speed limit. I was perfectly visible. I was wearing a fluorescent yellow vest and had my red taillight flashing. Despite this, he didn’t slow down, he didn’t move, he didn’t do anything. He came up behind me and hit me with his mirror and the front of the car. In that moment, I realised that if he had hit me head-on, I probably wouldn’t be here today.’
Garofoli, who fortunately suffered no broken bones, returned to his hotel and saw the car, which had been left at the scene, and the police identified the driver.
‘I’m sharing all this not to be controversial, but to remind us how helpless we are on the road and how it takes just one second, one wrong choice, to change a life. Today, that’s how it is. Tomorrow we start again, with a little more fear, but with so much gratitude for still being here,’ he said.
Andrea Piccolo arrested
Former EF Education-EasyPost rider Andrea Piccolo was arrested last week after being found in possession of counterfeit money. Carabinieri found €2,000 in counterfeit €20 notes under the steering wheel.
Piccolo’s racing career began to spiral in early 2024 when he was suspended without pay for taking a sleeping aid not approved by EF. A few months later, following a stint at the Giro d’Italia where he crashed out on Stage 19, he was sacked after being stopped by authorities on suspicion of transporting human growth hormone into Italy. He later admitted transporting four undisclosed substances from Colombia.
