Dubai Tour: Viviani wins in Palm Jumeirah

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After knocking on the door on stage one, Elia Vivani rewarded the efforts of his teammates to take his first victory in Team Sky colours on the Palm Jumeirah. Viviani bided his time, using Andrea Guardini (Astana) as his final lead-out man before he blasted past his fellow Italian with little over 100 metres to go. The Sky rider held the gap to win by a clear margin with yesterday’s winner Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep) taking second and Guardini holding on to third.

Team Sky assumed their position at the head of the peloton with just over 1 kilometre to go, with Bernhard Eisel bringing them up the left hand side of the road to push Astana off the front. Ben Swift and Viviani sat at the back of a five-man train. The British team held the front until the Etixx-QuickStep train, led by Tony Martin, muscled past as they dipped under the flamme rouge.

Mark Renshaw brought the group around the final corner, with Cavendish tucked in behind him. But it was Andrea Guardini who flinched first, perhaps with stage one in mind, launching his move from behind Cavendish’s wheel. It proved much too early and the Italian began to fade. Renshaw immediately pulled off, releasing Cavendish after Guardini.

Meanwhile, points leader Swift expertly dispatched Viviani onto the wheel of Guardini, who sailed up the left of the Astana rider. Cavendish tried to go around Viviani but the Italian proved too strong for the Manxman.

Cavendish kept hold of his leader’s jersey, leading Viviani in the overall standings by two seconds.

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As it happened

Stage two of the Dubai Tour began had three kilometres added to it before it even began with road works forcing the organisers to make some alterations to the day. Five men jumped off the front early, forming what would turn out to be the day’s break. Part of the break on day one, Enrico Battaglin (Bardiani CSF) was at it again. With him went Rafaa Chtioui (Skydive Dubai), Davide Frattini (UnitedHealthcare), Bernhard Eisel (Team Sky) and Chun Kai Feng (Lampre-Merida).

Eisel and Battaglin rode on until the first intermediate sprint before sitting up and leaving the remaining three riders to push on. The trio was given much more freedom than the previous day’s break and built up a maximum advantage of 5:30 on the peloton.

That was quickly demolished as wind picked up with 68 kilometres remaining and the BMC team took to the front. The American team put in a monstrous effort to take over a minute out of the advantage out of the three leaders in around two kilometres. With Daniel Oss and Marcus Burghardt driving the pace, the escapees could feel the peloton bearing down on them. Chtioui decided to go it alone with 61-kilometres remaining. Frattini and Feng put in little resistance and they were soon reabsorbed into the peloton.

With only one man against the wind out front, the peloton relaxed a little and allowed Chtioui was allowed to build an advantage of over two minutes. The new relaxed atmosphere had its victims though and some inattention in the peloton resulted in a touching of wheels and several riders hit the deck. Robert Kiserlovski was one of three Tinkoff-Saxo riders to crash, they were quickly back in the bunch but the Croatian had injured his thumb in the fall.

As the peloton entered the final 20 kilometres there was more confusion in the peloton, as several riders, predominantly from Bardiani and CCC Sprandi Polkowice, went down the wrong stretch of road. As the riders tried to correct their mistake CCC’s Sylwester Szmyd was sent tumbling as he was hit by a rider from Novo Nordisk.

Chtioui lasted another 10 kilometres out alone before the peloton finally caught up with him and it became a fight between the sprinters’ teams for the front of the peloton. Giant-Alpecin made a brief appearance on the front of the group, hoping for better success with John Degenkolb. Astana sent two riders forward, including Vincenzo Nibali who has been putting his efforts into helping Guardini at the four-day race.

With 1.4 kilometres to go, Eisel dragged the team Sky train up the left hand side of the road but they were quickly pushed out by Etixx-QuickStep. With no more men to protect him Guardini put himself into the wheel of Cavendish but it was Viviani who stole the march.

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