Italy's Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) conquered the new Jebel Mobrah climb to win stage 3 of the UAE Tour and claim the overall lead of the race, holding off a big chase from Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) to take his first victory since 2024.
Del Toro's effort came up short of catching the strong Italian but earned him second, 15 seconds down on Tiberi. Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) finished third, a further 14 seconds down, on the climb that blew up the peloton.
Tiberi followed an initial move from Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) with 6km to go, and then went solo with 4km to go. After failing to follow the first attacks, Del Toro relied on a big effort from Adam Yates to limit the gap to the leaders – and drop Evenepoel in the process – and then went off on a solo chase to Tiberi in the final 2km, but it wasn't enough to overturn the Italian's lead.
"The last 300 metres," Tiberi laughed when asked at what point in the climb he thought he could win.
"In the beginning, the feeling was really good, and I was there with the first guys. I saw that Remco, after some metres, started to lose a bit, and also Del Toro was not there, so I was thinking it was maybe a good day for me. But I was not sure, maybe they were just waiting for the final.
"But then I was there, the legs were really good. I tried to do my race, and I attacked, and I managed to do as hard as possible to the finish."
Tiberi now leads the GC with 21 seconds on Del Toro, and a minute on third-placed Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana), with the gaps already significant after only three stages. Evenepoel, meanwhile, dropped out of the top 10 altogether. He now sits in 11th at 1:44.
How it unfolded
Stage 3 started with Jebel Mobrah looming, but the rest of the day's route was mercifully flat, hardly rising at all for the first 140km. The uninteresting parcours was met with a fairly uninteresting early break, as Alpecin-Premier Tech sent a duo to be the day's breakaway, as Jonas Rickaert and Silvan Dillier escaped together about 5km into the stage.
Despite there being only two of them, Rickaert and Dillier were allowed to build up a significant lead over the opening 60km, reaching eight minutes at one point. That didn't mean it was easy in the peloton, though, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe setting a solid pace that saw some riders dropped at points, though they were mainly able to get back on.
After the sprint at Ras al Khaimah – won by Dillier – which ushered in the final 80km of racing, the pace in the peloton slowly picked up again, and the gap began to fall, down to five and a half minutes with 60km to go. With the climb coming, though, the peloton wasn't desperate to catch the leaders too soon – the climb itself would likely do that for them.
Dillier won the second sprint of the day, and with 20km to go, the gap dipped below three minutes as the fight for position intensified in the bunch. Starting the 13.2km final climb, the gap soon fell below a minute, but the flatter lower slopes meant that the peloton was still compact and fast-moving.
The catch was made with just under 12km to go as Decathlon-CMA CGM, UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe took up pace-setting as the road started to ramp up and riders began to be dropped at the back.
The first attack came from Chris Harper (Pinarello-Q36.5), and he dangled out front for a few kilometres, but was brought back before the short descent that preceded the second, harder half of the climb.
With 6km to go, Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep) led the next round of attacks, followed by Felix Gall and Antonio Tiberi, with Remco Evenepoel closing the gap quickly. It was not such good news down the group, though, with pre-race favourite Isaac del Toro failing to respond to the flurry of moves.
Gall was pushing ahead with 5km to go, and behind the group was all spread out with each rider pacing their own effort, allowing Gall to pull out a gap over a group of three: Luke Plapp, Harold Tejada and Tiberi.
They soon caught the Austrian rider, with a handful of riders 30 seconds ahead of the red jersey group, which contained Evenepoel and Del Toro, with Adam Yates working on the front on behalf of his Mexican teammate.
With 3.8km to go, Evenepoel started to struggle, slipping out of the back of the chase group and holding his right thigh, suggesting possible cramp. Up front, Tiberi was forging on ahead of the other leaders, pursuing a stage win and possibly the race lead, having started the day only 30 seconds off Evenepoel.
With 2.5km to go, Del Toro shook off any signs of struggle to attack from the third group on the road, with Lennert Van Eetvelt on his wheel, and they quickly passed Plapp as they set off towards Tiberi, soon catching Tejada and Gall too. The Italian went into the last 2km with a 28-second advantage, but Del Toro soon accelerated on a solo chase, quickly halving that gap and looking strong enough to catch Tiberi.
However, the Bahrain rider refused to let up in the final kilometres to the line and valiantly held on to claim the victory, and with it the race lead. This is his first win since taking the GC title at the Tour de Luxembourg in 2024, and the first time he's actually got his arms in the air in over three years.
With four stages to go – including stage 6 to Jebel Hafeet – the GC is far from done, but Tiberi and Del Toro have both shown themselves to be the stronger climbers in the field, whilst Evenepoel will have a big job to do to turn over a 1:44 deficit, even on a climb like Jebel Hafeet.
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