UAE Tour: Caleb Ewan wins at Hatta Dam

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Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) triumphed at Hatta Dam for the second year in a row to claim victory on stage 2 of the UAE Tour. 

The Australian, who won on the same uphill sprint on stage 4 of last year's edition, remained patient as Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) hit out early, and came past the Irishman in the last 50 metres. 

There was a two-second gap to Bennett at the line, and two more seconds back to the rest of the field, with Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) pipping Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) to the final podium spot. 

The victory propels Ewan into the overall lead of the race as Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe), who beat him to the opening-day victory, was dropped on the penultimate climb, along with Chris Froome (Team Ineos). 

On the approach to the final sprint up Hatta Dam, Astana took control for Alexey Lutsenko, who had taken a bonus second at an earlier intermediate sprint. However, inside the final kilometre, Ewan's teammate Jasper De Buyst came through to lead out the sprint.

Bennett looked to spring a surprise by hitting out with more than 150 metres to go but Ewan calmly sprinted up into the slipstream before easing past on the double-digit gradients in the final 50 metres as Bennett's pace plummeted. 

"I’m so happy with that win," said Ewan, who explained he didn't panic when Bennett went early and opened a gap.

"I could have gone from the bottom too but I knew it was better to wait a few seconds, because those last 20-30 metres are where you can really win the race, and that’s what I did. If you blow there, you can lose so much time. I knew how long I could go for, I timed my sprint really well and was able to accelerate all the way to the line."

In the overall standings, Ewan leads Bennett by 12 seconds, with Demare third at 16 seconds and Nikolai Cherkasov (Gazprom-RusVelo) fourth at 17 seconds. The majority of the field and the major general classification contenders sit at 20 seconds, but just ahead of them is Lutsenko, who put in a considerable effort to pick up a bonus second at the intermediate sprint with just under 50km to go. 

At the first intermediate sprint, after 40km, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) had shown an interest, in another indication that overall contenders are wary that the title - set to be decided on summit finishes at Jebel Hafeet on stages 3 and 5 - could come down to the finest of margins.

As expected, Froome will play no part in the overall battle after struggling on his second day of racing since his serious crash last June. The British rider was dropped on a climb with 10km to go and despite nearly regaining contact after the descent, finished more than 3:30 behind the main bunch. 

How it unfolded

The 168km stage started out in Hatta, just below the Dam, but the route headed north out to the emirate of Fujairah before tracking a similar route back. There was a diversion in the finale, in order to tackle a short climb with 10km to go on a parcours that, while lacking a categorised ascent, nevertheless packed in 2500 metres of elevation gain.

Two riders failed to take to the start, Miles Scotson (Groupama-FDJ) and Laurens De Plus (Jumbo-Visma) both withdrawing due to illness.

There wasn’t much interest in a breakaway, and it was left to two teammates from the Vini Zabu' KTM team – Veljko Stojnic and Leonardo Tortomasi – to spend the day out front together. Their advantage over the peloton rose to 4:30 as Stojnic took the points at the first intermediate sprint.

By the second intermediate sprint, with just under 50km to go, Lotto Soudal had brought the gap down to a minute. Stojnic took maximum points again to ensure he’ll wear the black jersey tomorrow as leader of the intermediate sprints classification, before sitting up, grabbing bottles from the team car, and waiting for the peloton. In the bunch behind, there was a battle for the final bonus second. Lutsenko received a two-man lead-out from Astana and had to sprint full gas in order to hold off Jesus Herrada, who had been propelled to the front by his own Cofidis teammates.

The gap to the lone leader, Tortomasi, stabilised at 1:30 before falling sharply ahead of his capture with 24km to go. From there, there was a strong tempo leading to the climb with just over 10km to go. Ackermann and Mark Cavendish (Bahrain McLaren) were among the sprinters to lose contact – along with Froome – but Ewan and Bennett showed no sign of trouble.

Towards the top, Victor Campenaerts (NTT) launched a speculative attack and was joined by Trek-Segafredos Nicola Conci. The duo took 20 seconds over the top but were caught with 3.5km to go. Just before that, Froome had sprinted out of a corner to try and finish closing the deficit he’d suffered on the climb, but was unable to do so and rode steadily up to the finish.

After some disorganisation in the closing kiliometres, Astana took control and led through Gorka Izaguirre from 2km to go, with Lutsenko on the wheel. With 700m to go, De Buyst surged up to take Ewan to the front. Bennett hijacked the lead-out and looked to upset things with an early sprint, but Ewan had the experience and judged his effort to perfection.

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