UAE Tour: Jonathan Milan takes sprint victory on stage 1 following late attack from Tadej Pogačar

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The opening stage of the UAE Tour 2025 was taken by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek). The Italian sprinter originally beat out Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) to the win on the brutal uphill sprint finish in Liwa.

Instead, Philipsen was later relegated from his podium spot to last place in the peloton – 52nd – after impeding Finn Fisher-Black (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in the final metres before the finish line.

Fisher-Black was duly bumped up to second place as a result, while third-place Tobias Lund Andresen (Picnic-PostNL) jumped up into third on the day's podium for his troubles

"I feel brutally tired after this sprint. The warmth and the last 700 metres of the race have made it really tough, more than I was thinking," Milan said later. "It was a pretty intense day with echelons and attackers to bring back.

"I must thank my guys. They controlled, supported me and led me to the final stretch. I'm super happy with this victory, it was so hard! Tomorrow we'll try to defend the lead". 

As a result of his stage victory, Milan now holds the overall race lead by four seconds from Fisher-Black, heading into stage 2, a 12.2km time trial around Al Hudayriyat Island.

How it unfolded

The week-long race began with an opener where the only certainty was unpredictability – with a lumpy stage in the dunes around Liwa over a punchy 138km. The riders took on changeable weather with some speckles of rain to begin with followed by sunshine. 

Three riders went up the road right at the start of the stage which immediately saw the formation of the breakaway. Two VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane riders, Federico Biagini and Manuele Tarozzi, as well as Carlos Samudio of Solution Tech-Vini Fantini. They had a maximum gap of just over three minutes. 

The stage began on an arrow straight and flat road towards Liwa. However, the peloton soon headed into the sand dunes and into one of the UAE's strikingly expansive cycle tracks, and riders swept through the hilly terrain for two laps. 

Before they made it there, the break battled for the first intermediate sprint in Liwa with Samudio managed to beat the two teammates of Biagini and Tarozzi to the maximum points and bonus seconds.

When they left Liwa they entered the short 18km laps with the race just riding reasonably steadily up and down the beautiful towering sand dunes with Lidl-Trek, Soudal-QuickStep and Alpecin-Deceuninck doing the majority of the work.

But, in the second lap, the peloton started to change. Now it was UAE Team Emirates-XRG moving forward with world champion Tadej Pogačar, and they had the sense of purpose that assured a plan was in motion.

This plan was revealed moments later with the UAE Team Emirates-XRG riders hitting the front en masse at speed with Pogačar pushing hard himself. This saw one big-name sprinter, Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) lose touch.

However, with the break just a few metres ahead of the bunch, the pace completely dropped out of the peloton again with the gap going from about 15 seconds to the break to a huge gap of two and a half minutes.

The gap ballooned so much thanks to Tarozzi attacking his breakaway companions for the second intermediate sprint after Samudio managed to beat the VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè in the first intermediate sprint.

Tarozzi took the maximum eight points as well as the three bonus seconds. His teammate, Biagini, then managed to beat Samudio to the five points and two bonus seconds. Both times in the intermediate sprints the peloton was led by Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek), handing him two points on the day.

Into the final 20km, Tarozzi had just under two minutes on the peloton. But, the pace had changed dramatically with Lidl-Trek being joined by Soudal-QuickStep and Alpecin-Deceuninck. This saw the gap start to tumble.

With 15km to go, Samudio and Biagini were caught by the peloton. Tarozzi still had over a minute. Several other teams moved to the front with UAE Team Emirates-XRG and the team of defending champion Lennert Van Eetvelt, Lotto, joining the sprint teams. This meant Tarozzi got caught with 10km to go.

The main sprinter for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Juan Sebastian Molano, crashed in bizarre circumstances before he could do battle. He was taking a drink from his bidon before he clipped the wheel of Pogačar and was sent flying off the road onto some rocks.

Into the final 5km, the pace ramped right up with the GC teams of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Lotto and Ineos Grenadiers leading the bunch. The sprinters' teams were battling behind them.

Heading into the final 2km, the sprinter's teams took over with Lidl-Trek, Visma-Lease a Bike, Alpecin-Deceuninck and Jayco-AlUla battling for control.

But, in the final kilometre, Tudor Pro Cycling took the lead for their sprinter Arvid De Kleijn. However, the Dutchman wasn't with them in the final shakeup and they quickly dropped away.

Pogačar hit the front with about 300 metres to go as he tried to take glory on the brutal 8% slopes to the line. But, he was quickly overtaken by the pure sprinters with Milan and Philipsen blasting away from the others with a superb third place for Fisher-Black. Milan took the win with Philipsen and Fisher-Black rounding out the podium.

The second stage in the UAE Tour will be an individual time trial on the Al Hudayriyat Island for 12km of racing against the clock.

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