FDJ SUEZ rider holds off bunch sprint in well-calculated solo breakaway effort to win final stage at Abu Dhabi Breakwater
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Amber Kraak and FDJ SUEZ celebrate winning stage 4 at the 2024 UAE Tour Women(Image credit: Getty Images)
Amber Kraak's (FDJ-SUEZ) impressive stage 4 victory at the 2024 UAE Tour Women was of the closest margins, as the breakaway rider soloed across the finish line just a fraction of a second ahead of a charging bunch sprint won by one of the fastest women in the peloton SD Worx-Protime's Lorena Wiebes.
Although Kraak was part of the Jumbo-Visma team that won the opening team time trial at La Vuelta Femenina in Torrevieja last year, her stage 4 victory in Abu Dhabi Breakwater, which closed out the four-day UAE Tour Women, was her first individual stage victory on the WorldTour since joining the top-tier of professional cycling in 2021.
"I was listening on the radio, and I heard my teammates yelling, 'Go. go, go,' and also from the car, so I knew it was tight. I didn't dare to look back or put my arms in the air," Kraak said. "Besides the TTT last year at the Vuelta, this is my first solo victory on the WorldTour, so I'm not used to it. I will celebrate next time with my arms in the air."
It is Kraak's first season (and first race) with her new team, FDJ-SUEZ, and it couldn't have gotten off to a better start. The team had already secured their first WorldTour stage win of the season with Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig at the Tour Down Under. Kraak brings home the second top-tier win for the French team, which bodes well for their overall confidence ahead of the upcoming Spring Classics.
UAE Tour Women is known as a sprinters' paradise because it offered only one GC-deciding moment atop Jebel Hafeet on the penultimate stage 3. The other three stages were highly anticipated sprints, with Wiebes winning stage 1 in Dubai Harbour and stage 2 in Madinat Zayed. Even stage 4's pan-flat finish seemed destined for the sprinters.
What made Kraak's stage 4 victory all the more impressive was that it was well-planned out from the moment she decided to join Sophie Wright (Fenix-Deceuninck), Monica Greenwood (Team Coop-Repsol) and Margarita Misyurina (Tashkent City) in the breakaway with 90km to go.
"We planned to go for the attack, and we needed to be open to attack in the beginning, even with a headwind. I saw the three girls go and thought, 'We are going to try it today'," Kraak said.
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"When we had three minutes, I thought, 'If we work together, we can make it.' Three of us, and only three riders to close it, then I thought, we could go with this group to the finish."
Indeed, the three riders pulling the peloton in a desperate chase to close the gap for their sprinter Wiebes were SD Worx-Protime's Femke Gerritse, Barbara Guarischi and Femke Markus, while Lotte Kopecky stayed safely among the bunch in the overall leader's jersey.
In a well-calculated surge, Kraak distanced her rivals inside 6km to go but still held 45 seconds over the main field. Although her gap was slashed in the closing kilometres, and there was a crash in the field, Kraak held off the sprinters to take the day's victory. "I wanted to wait for the sprint, but when the others stopped riding, I thought, 'Let's go'," Kraak said.
Asked if SD Worx-Protime had misjudged the time gap, world champion and overall winner at the UAE Tour Women, Lotte Kopecky, said, "My teammates did everything to try to close the gap, and we didn't succeed, so we must admit that Kraak was very strong."
Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.
Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.
She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.
