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You're seeing the Whoop band more and more these days, peeking out from under the jerseys of the world's best cyclists. Three years ago it was just one rider. Now it's spread across most of a top team's roster. And the reason isn't the usual story of a brand sponsoring an athlete and calling it a day. It's more calculated, and more interesting, than it looks on the surface.

Why Van der Poel first?

Here's what people miss about him: he's not just fast, he's multidisciplinary in a way that's rare. Cyclocross, gravel, classics, mountain biking. But what really explains why he was the pick is how he rides. Van der Poel doesn't play it safe, he attacks where others hold back and leaves nothing in the tank. That all-in style was exactly what Whoop needed to prove: that its product holds up at the real edge of human performance, not the safe edge of someone racing not to lose.

It also fits a playbook Whoop had already been running outside of cycling. Instead of paying fortunes for traditional ad space, they went after athletes at a level so elite that just showing up did the credibility work for them. This wasn't mass influencer marketing, it was credibility by association: aligning with top performers made the case that the device was built for serious performance, not step-counting. Van der Poel was that strategy applied to cycling, and he happened to be the perfect rider to carry it.

Pogačar's case is different, and even more remarkable

Here's the nuance that matters: Pogačar didn't sign a deal and then start wearing it. He was already wearing it before any deal existed. The best rider in the world, deciding on his own that it worked, with nobody paying him a cent. That's worth more than any contract number, because there was nothing to sell him on, just something true to make official.

In April 2026, that got formalized on a much bigger scale. Whoop signed an official two-year partnership with the entire UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad, naming it their official health and performance wearable. And it's not the only team, either: Whoop already had a similar deal with EF Education, proof this had moved beyond a couple of individual riders into peloton-wide strategy.

When the numbers have nowhere to hide

Whoop builds a condition into its contracts that most brands wouldn't dare: partners have to share their real data. This isn't an image deal, it's a commitment to show up as you actually are. No strapping it on just for the photo op. If a rider wears Whoop, their sleep, effort, and recovery numbers are right there, exposed, good or bad. When you fall short, the data shows it.

And that condition has surfaced things we'd never have seen otherwise. Van der Poel's HRV sitting above 200, more than double the average for an amateur cyclist his age. Pogačar hitting 198 beats per minute on his way to winning the 2026 Tour of Flanders. Or the fact that before Richard Carapaz won stage 20 at Alpe d'Huez, his recovery score was sitting at just 44%, well below ideal, and he won the queen stage anyway. Sometimes the numbers don't say what you'd expect, and that's part of the story too.

Money doesn't pick sides

Whoop's latest funding round pulled in Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, tied directly to the UAE royal family. That same Mubadala also holds an indirect stake in the ecosystem funding UAE Team Emirates. Money from the same country, sitting on both sides of the deal.

Alongside Mubadala, the Qatar Investment Authority — Qatar's sovereign fund — invested too. And here's the interesting part: the UAE and Qatar have been at odds for years, tension serious enough to trigger a diplomatic blockade between 2017 and 2021. And yet when it comes to putting money into a company like Whoop, their sovereign funds line up without a hitch. The business of elite sport, up close, crosses rivalries that would be unthinkable to bridge anywhere else.

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