Dylan Groenewegen takes sprint victory in UAE Tour stage 5

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Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) triumphed in another highly-competitive bunch sprint on stage 5 of the UAE Tour, becoming the third different winner in the space of three sprints.

The Dutchman beat Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) and Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) to the line in Umm-Al-Quwain to collect his second win of the season.

Stage 1 winner Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) faded markedly on the opposite side of the road, while the sheer number of top-level sprinters present left little room and left the likes of Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates), Sam Welsford (DSM), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma), and Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) outside the top 10.

"It was a hard one, really difficult to get good timing," Groenewegen said. "We had really late timing but it was a good moment. I was then in the wheel of Sam Bennett, and I went with 250 metres to go which is also long, so it's a really good win."

In the overall standings, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) extended his lead by two seconds thanks to bonuses collected at an intermediate sprint.

Although a full bunch arrived together at the finish and the GC contenders finished on the same time, there was a scare inside the last 20km as light crosswinds split the race.

Evenepoel was caught out and took it upon himself to bridge a big gap to the lead group in one impressive effort. After putting that fire out, the world champion then looked to inflict the damage himself as Luke Plapp (Ineos Grenadiers), second overall, was left flailing in a group at 25 seconds down. Bahrain Victorious, who in Pello Bilbao have the only other rider in striking distance of Evenepoel, looked to pile on the pressure, but a turn into a headwind stifled the attacking intent and the race came back together.

Until then, it had been the sleepiest of days on a 170km stage up and down the Emirate of Ras al Khaimah, largely hugging the coast. There was only one rider tempted into the breakaway, the intrepid Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Dsnty), who settled in for a long and lonely ride that came to an end with just over 20km to go.

A short while later, the peloton split almost out of nowhere and, despite coming back together, it was a tense run-in with multiple changes of direction.

Alpecin-Deceuninck had the front heading through the final bend in the last kilometre, but Bennett's Bora-Hansgrohe soon punched through and looked to be in pole position on the left, while Bert Van Lerberghe moved out to launch Merlier for QuickStep on the right.

Groenewegen initially looked to be more inclined to moving right to follow the wheels but then swung over to the left, ignoring his lead-out man Luka Mezgec to bag the wheel of Bennett. He jostled with Gaviria for it and they shared it half-and-half before they both decided to open up with just over 200 metres to go - Groenwegen towards the middle and Gaviria right alongside the barriers.

Groenewegen got out in front and then moved towards the barriers in front of Gaviria, holding his speed all the way to the line.

Evenepoel now leads the race by nine seconds over Plapp and 13 seconds over Bilbao, with another sprint possible on stage 6 before the decisive finale atop Jebel Hafeet on Sunday.

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