Merlier wins UAE Tour stage 1 photo finish as echelons blow-up GC

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Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) beat Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny) by the tightest of margins to win to stage 1 of the UAE Tour, while his teammate Remco Evenepoel stole an early march on his GC rivals on an opening day of racing blown apart by crosswinds and echelons.

Ewan threw his bike at the finish line at the same time as Merlier as they sprinted for the win from the 13-man break. The Australian was initially convinced he had taken the decision, raising an arm in celebration after he crossed the line. The photo-finish image instead suggested a rare dead heat but after lengthy deliberations, the UCI commissaires eventually gave the verdict to Merlier. 

Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) took third ahead of Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma), while Evenepoel stole a march by placing eighth and gaining 51 seconds on the bulk of the overall contenders. Tuesday’s stage 17.3km team time trial will surely give the overall classification a further shake-up. 

The decisive split of stage 1 took shape with 29 km to go, with Soudal-QuickStep and Lotto-Dstny combining to force an echelon. 

Evenepoel, inevitably, was safely aboard, and he found allies of circumstance in the group, including Luke Plapp (Ineos Grenadiers) and Pello Bilbao, who had three Bahrain Victorious teammates for company.

Their combined efforts saw the break enter the final 20 km with 40 seconds in hand on the chasers, and they would extend that lead beyond a minute as they hurtled towards the finish. By then, Movistar were leading the chase in the main peloton on behalf of Fernando Gaviria, but theirs was a forlorn effort, with the escapees now firmly out of reach.

Evenepoel was the break’s driving force on the run-in and with two kilometres to go, he even briefly pulled Plapp and Bilbao clear with him, before Ewan’s teammate Jarrad Drizners restored some order.

Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal-QuickStep) led Merlier into the final corner but the Belgian champion had Ewan parked on his wheel as he kicked for the line. Ewan drew level in the closing metres, but he couldn’t get past Merlier and both threw their bikes at the line in desperation. Cavendish was further back after struggling to find a clear run at the line in their slipstream. 

Merlier and Ewan sportingly shook hands and stood together beyond the finish. They both rode to the podium area and reviewed the photo-finish image, as race officials seemed unable to reach a decision and perhaps considered deciding on a dead heat. 

After an interminable wait, however, the jury gave the nod to Merlier, who commiserated with Ewan before making his way to the podium.

“I was not sure,” Merlier admitted afterwards. “I know I did a good jump in the end, and I knew when I started my sprint that it was a good sprint, but Caleb was coming from the wheel and you know he’s a dangerous guy if he is in the wheel. In the end it was really close, I had to wait for fifteen minutes to decide who won.”

The general classification picture looks a little clearer after the all-action opening stage, with Evenepoel, Plapp and Bilbao firmly established as the men to beat after they picked up 51 seconds on the peloton. 

Above all, it was a most disappointing start for UAE Team Emirates in their home race. With Tadej Pogacar preferring to start his season in Spain, new signings Adam Yates and Jay Vine line out as leaders but they will rue handing Evenepoel a head start like this ahead of Tuesday’s team time trial.

Plapp, however, gently rejected the idea that the list of potential winners was already down to just three names. 

“It’s a long way to go, and there’s a lot of crosswinds,” he said. “Of course, UAE are on the backfoot, and they’ll try something, so anything can happen.”

How it unfolded

With the wind gently gusting up to 30 kph and exposed roads all the way, vigilance was the byword at the start at Al Dhafra Castle. 

“You have to be always awake,” Evenepoel warned before the start. “It’s 150k of 200% focus.”

The world champion was as good as his word, present and correct when the race split up in the opening kilometres, with the fissures in the peloton forced by a combination of crosswinds and crashes. 

Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) was among the unfortunate fallers and though the American was able to remount and continue, the incident left him on the back foot for most of the stage.

He wasn’t alone. Within 10km, the race had been sundered into three distinct and very spectacular echelons, with Evenepoel, Plapp, Bilbao and Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) among the 20-strong group in front. Cavendish was initially there but then hit a stone and dropped to join Ewan, Merlier and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) in the second group on the road.

The Evenepoel group’s lead over Yates et all oscillated between 30 seconds and a minute for much of the next 100 km, while the third group on the road, which included Jay Vine, seemed irretrievably distanced at some four minutes.

Plapp and Bilbao picked up bonus seconds at the first intermediate sprint, while Evenepoel claimed a pair of seconds for himself at the second, but that looked set to be the sum total of their gains when the front two groups merged with 50 km remaining.

Indeed, such was the drop in intensity that the Vine group began to close in rapidly on the leaders, with their deficit quickly shrinking from four minutes to less than one.

However that lull created its own risks.

“We raced full gas for 100k and then it came back, and I think everyone got a false sense of security and thought the race was finished,” said Plapp, who was wise to the danger when Soudal-QuickStep and Lotto-Dstny wound up the pace with 29 km to go.

The Australian joined Evenepoel, Van Lerberghe, Merlier, Cavendish, Cees Bol (Astana-Qazaqstan), Kooij, Bilbao, Nikias Arndt, Phil Bauhaus, Matevz Goveka (Bahrain Victorious), Ewan and Jarrad Drizners (Lotto-Dstny) at the front, and their smooth collaboration would carry them all the way to the finish.

The stage ended in a close sprint but so much else happened on the first day of racing at the UAE Tour. It was a breathless day of racing, with similar crosswinds expected for Tuesday’s team time trial and the rest of the week.