UAE Tour: Mathieu van der Poel wins stage 1

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Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) won a frantic, wind-affected, echelon-strewn opening stage of the UAE Tour.

The Dutchman out-spinted David Dekker (Jumbo-Visma) and Michael Mørkøv (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in a small, 23-man group that formed as crosswinds wreaked havoc on the race earlier in the stage. 

In the absence of top sprinters Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe), who had all been distanced earlier in the crosswinds, Van der Poel’s sprint was quick enough to claim his first win of the road season only three weeks after he won the cyclo-cross World Championships.

In the GC battle, João Almeida (Deceuninc-QuickStep), Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) emerged as early favourites after all of their major rivals were dumped out of overall contention in the wind. 

After eventually sitting up after a desperate chase in the wind, all the chasers, who had been separated into various smaller groups during the day, ultimately finished together in a large group eight and a half minutes down. Chris Froome was also in this group on his debut with Israel Start-Up Nation.

That brought an early end to the GC ambitions of several pre-race favourites, including: Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Sergio Higuita (EF Education-Nippo), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), Wout Poels (Bahrain-Victorious), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Victorious), and the Ineos Grenadiers duo Ivan Sosa and Daniel Martinez.

“Today was very windy and a very hard race”, explained Van der Poel at the finish, reflecting on a tough return to World Tour racing.

“After the intermediate sprint a big group went away, and I was able to catch them. It was a really hard race...I know that I can finish it off in the sprint, but I didn’t expect it at all. It’s really nice to begin the road season with a win.”

Despite having made the split, Van der Poel was not favourite to win the sprint, with Elia Viviani (Cofidis) and Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) also present in the lead group.

But both those sprinters, who endured such difficult seasons last year, continued to struggle to find their best legs, and Van der Poel was clearly the strongest after a tiring day in the saddle.

“When the race is really hard, my sprint gets better and better,” van der Poel explained.

“I knew that I had to be in a good position and start sprinting when I thought it was the right moment. [His teammate] Gianni Meersman did an amazing job to catch the guy who was away [Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Mattia Cattaneo, who tried a solo attack 6km from the finish], and I’m really happy to begin this way.”

It was a particularly impressive transition back to road racing for Van der Poel.

“ I didn’t really expect this. I took some rest, and then I trained one week with the team, and then I came here. I think this is cyclo-cross shape in the desert!”

How it unfolded

Following the Covid-related cancellation of the Tour Down Under, the 2021 World Tour finally got underway with the opening stage of the third UAE Tour, taking the riders from Al Dhafra Castle to the small village of Al Mirfa on the northern coast. 

In terms of terrain, the stage promised to be a relatively straightforward transition back into top level racing, thanks to a pan flat parcours without a single category climb. But, as is often the case in the remote desert landscapes of this country, strong winds on the exposed roads made for a frantic day of racing right from the outset.

Ineos Grenadiers caused the first split in the early crosswinds, catching out multiple overall contenders including Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Sergio Higuita (EF Education-Nippo). An intense pursuit followed, and the groups eventually came back together following a change in direction.

The action was far from finished, however. After a brief period of downtime when the remaining chasers were able to bridge back up, Deceuninck-QuickStep moved to the front ahead of the day’s first intermediate sprint, 112km from the finish. As well as leading out their GC leader Joao Almeida for three bonus seconds, they caused new splits, with four sizable groups strewn out across the road in picturesque echelon formations.

While the chasing groups behind periodically expanded and split up, as groups joined together and tired riders dropped back, a leading group of 26 remained constant.

This group extended its lead over the main chasing group to around 1:20, and, despite the efforts of teams like Bora-Hansgrohe (working for their sprinter Pascal Ackermann), it remained more or less the same time.

The chase appeared to be lost as the riders reached the finishing circuit. As Almeida outsprinted Pogacar to again take the bonus seconds on the day’s second intermediate sprint at 38km to the finish, the gap to the chasers had suddenly grown to over two minutes, with the riders then throwing in the towel.

That left the leading group (now reduced to 23 after a few tired domestiques had dropped back) to contest the stage, and they maintained a relatively steady pace as the finish approached. 

Having been protagonists throughout the day, Deceuninck-QuickStep sought to capitalise on their numerical advantage in the final 10km with a series of attacks. 

After a couple of short-lived attempts from Fausto Masnada and then another rider, Mattia Cattaneo opened up a dangerous lead after he made a move 6km from the line.

He got a gap and went deep however he was brought back when Fernando Gaviria decided not to wait for the sprint and jumped out of the group. The Colombian made it up to Cattaneo’s wheel but the pair were subsequently brought back by the group in the final kilometre, setting up a sprint finish.

Viviani opened the sprint after Arcgbol’s lead out but faded as the line approached as Van der Poel, Dekker, Morkov and Emil Liepins (Trek-Segafredo) passed him to finish first, second, third and fourth respectively.

The few riders remaining in overall contention will now fight for every second in Monday’s 13km individual time trial at Al Hudayriat Island before the stage 3 finish on the Jebel Hafeet mountain finish. Van der Poel is likely to keep the leader’s red jersey with Pogacar, Yates and Almeida expected to go on to fight for overall victory during the week.