Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Visma-Lease a Bike super talent Jørgen Nordhagen are among the riders set to make their 2025 season debuts in Oman on Friday, February 7.
Racing begins in the Middle Eastern country’s capital city Muscat with a UCI 1.1 one-day race, before the five-day Tour of Oman launches on Saturday, February 8, and concludes with the well-known summit finish up Green Mountain.
Yates will lead a strong UAE side as they look to defend both titles from last season, where Finn Fisher-Black, now at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, won the Muscat Classic and the Brit took victory in the stage race.
The Brit will have the support of new signing Florian Vermeersch, ahead of the Belgian’s Classics campaign, and both Jay Vine and Rafał Majka in the mountains.
“It’s always exciting to pin a number on again after a long break,” said Yates on UAE’s website.
“Obviously I’ve got great memories in Oman from what we did there last year. If we could repeat that it would be perfect but there will be competition no doubt. All-round I’m just keen to get things going and get racing.”
He’ll face stiff competition from Visma-Lease a Bike, who are led by Cian Uijtdebroeks and neo-pro Nordhagen, 20, who is pegged to be one of the sport’s future stars. The Dutch team will also be eyeing up sprint opportunities with Olav Kooij and his newly signed lead-out man for 2025, Dan McLay.
Visma were keen not to put excessive pressure on the young Norwegian to perform, especially with Uijtdebroek’s talents and youth at still only 21. It’s more about development for the Dutch team and preparing their young talents to step up.
“My season will largely consist of stage races like this. Development is the most important thing this year,” said Nordhagen. “Hopefully, I can make nice steps in 2025 that will pay off in results.”
Nordhagen has also been learning the ropes from Visma’s main leader and fellow Scandinavian Jonas Vingegaard in his first few months on the WorldTour team.
“The two training camps in Spain went well. In December at training camp I shared a room with Jonas Vingegaard,” he said.
“Jonas is a fantastic rider, but above all a very normal and kind person. A good learning point for me was to see his daily preparations for training sessions up close. He shared everything and really wanted to pass it on to me. That’s special, of course.”
Also making their season debut in Oman will be a whole host of new signings, including the U23 road world champion Niklas Behrens, who is also on Visma and Ethan Hayter at Soudal-QuickStep, who will be looking to re-find his best form.
