Remco Evenepoel was not grinning from ear to ear as he stood talking to journalists a few hundred metres after the finish of stage 1 of the UAE Tour, but his air of quiet satisfaction spoke volumes about a hugely successful day both for himself and the Soudal-Quick Step team.
On a spellbinding day of echelon racing through the desert, the world champion and 12 others broke away late to gain an important gap of almost a minute on leading pre-race favourite Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates).
Such a "'big step forwards" in the GC battle, as Evenepoel himself called it, already made stage 1 a very positive day for the Belgian. But after a few minutes of indecision by the race commissaires, the cherry on the cake for Soudal-QuickStep came when it was confirmed that his teammate Tim Merlier had won the stage in a photo finish sprint ahead of Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny).
Tuesday's team time trial will still have a major say in the UAE Tour's outcome. Evenepoel's pre-race hopes of a final podium or more have increased considerably thanks to the surprise mass ambush on stage 1.
"I had a pretty good day," Evenepoel agreed. "I did some good training before the race and that showed today, I could always follow pretty easily, so I'm happy with the feeling. These are some good signs for the coming days and a big step forward."
Rather than the set-piece battles of the team time trial and the two summit finishes yet to come, Monday's gains were more about seizing the moment and Evenepoel agreed his race had got off to a better start than he could have hoped for.
"For sure," he said, "when you know there's going be crosswinds, you don't want to be in the group that loses time. I think in a short distance we took a lot of time, and the tailwind we had helped us keep the speed very high."
The crosswind attacks started from the opening kilometres and, helped by crashes, Evenepoel was part of a group of around 20 that shot clear and put minutes into the backmarkers. His sprinter Tim Merlier, however, missed the move.
Merlier eventually got back to the front when the front two groups merged with 50km remaining, and the Belgian champion's positioning was altogether better when Soudal-Quickstep put the hammer down again with 29km to go. This time, a group of thirteen went clear, with QuickStep represented by Merlier, Bert Van Lerberghe and, of course, Evenepoel.
"The team's start was maybe not the best, but the finish was definitely good in the echelons," Evenepoel said. "And being ahead on the GC as well means we can start knowing a lot of our rivals' times in the team time trial as well. It'll be another fun day tomorrow."
