'I know my role pretty well' – Brandon McNulty's rainbow jersey debut revealed

Brandon McNulty will make his debut in the rainbow jersey this Saturday 3 October at the Giro dell’Emilia, his UAE Team Emirates-XRG team has confirmed.

The American stunned the elite men’s road race at the UCI World Championships last Sunday, when he won with a 33km solo attack. The victory made him the first American man in 33 years to claim the title.

McNulty’s first port of call as world champion will be a trio of Italian one-day races: this Saturday’s Giro dell’Emilia, Sunday’s Coppa Agostini, and Tre Valle Varesine on Tuesday 6 October. He is then expected to take the start line at Il Lombardia, the final Monument of the year, on 10 October.

“I’m really excited to make my debut in the rainbow jersey this Saturday,” McNulty said in comments shared on UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s website. “The win in Montreal has definitely been something massive for me and I am still coming to terms with it a bit and letting it sink in.

“I still have a lot of racing left this season and I’m excited for it. We have a strong group for these races, and we’ll be aggressive as always.”

While McNulty has taken more than 20 individual wins since joining UAE in 2020, his role within the squad has largely been as a climbing domestique for the five-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar.

Becoming world champion himself is an honour, the American said, but “it doesn’t change my approach”.

“We’ll continue to race as we always do. Whether that’s attacking or helping my teammates – I know my role pretty well, and we have a great understanding of what works, so we’ll keep it that way,” the 28-year-old said.

Racing alongside McNulty at the Giro dell’Emilia will be Igor Arrieta, Filippo Baroncini, Felix Großschartner, Jhonatan Narváez, Tim Wellens and Adam Yates. UAE has won the last two editions of the event, through Isaac del Toro in 2025 and Pogačar in 2024.

The team is still to announce a racing comeback for the Slovenian, the previous world champion, after he crashed out of the Vuelta a España at the end of August. Having missed the World Championships, Pogačar will also miss his European Championships title defence this Sunday, as he prioritises his recovery from neck and collarbone fractures. He has, however, returned to outdoor training.

The Giro dell’Emilia is a 1.Pro-ranked event, held over 197.9km in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. The race closes on a finishing circuit in Bologna, with five ascents of the San Luca climb, at the top of which the finish line is painted.

McNulty has never competed in the event before.