Carapaz takes stage 18 as illness disrupts Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Emirates XRG
Richard Carapaz claimed victory on stage 18 of the Tour de France after a breakaway of six riders reached the finish at Orcières-Merlette. The result came amid growing concern for race leader Tadej Pogacar after a virus spread through his UAE Emirates XRG team following Monday's rest day.
The finish at the winter sports station in Orcières-Merlette saw a small group determine the stage win, while earlier moves and attrition shaped the day. Adam Yates had been prominent with a prolonged effort on the road to Voiron, animating the race before the decisive moves. The UAE Emirates XRG squad reported multiple riders affected by illness, and the team lost one of its key members when Brandon McNulty abandoned the race. McNulty, an American colleague of Pogacar, quit the Tour with 21km of Thursday's stage remaining.
A sextet broke clear and contested the climb to Orcières-Merlette, with Carapaz emerging as the strongest to take the stage. The composition of that breakaway and the tactics within it decided the finish, producing Carapaz’s winning move. The stage victory adds another notable result to Carapaz’s season while the peloton reorganised behind the break.
Trouble off the front for UAE Emirates XRG has become a dominant subplot after the team reported a virus spreading among its riders since Monday's rest day. Riders within the squad have been compromised in varying degrees, and reports during the stage cited struggles from teammates including Wellens and Vermeersch. Those difficulties reduced the options available to support Pogacar as the race entered its latter stages.
Adam Yates’s long, punishing ride toward Voiron featured earlier in the day’s narrative, testing rivals and altering the tempo of the peloton. That sustained effort set the scene for later moves and highlighted how aggressive tactics shaped stage 18. In the closing phases, the abandonment of Brandon McNulty further depleted the UAE Emirates XRG roster: he left the race with 21km of Thursday's stage still to run.
The combination of Carapaz’s breakaway success and the sudden illness within Pogacar’s team has left the race with fresh storylines to monitor. The spread of the virus through UAE Emirates XRG and the loss of McNulty have introduced uncertainty about the squad’s immediate capacity to provide full support for their leader as the Tour continues.