UAE Tour: Tadej Pogačar crushes GC opposition to take Jebel Jais stage 3 summit finish victory

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Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took victory on stage 3 of the UAE Tour, jumping clear in the closing sprint from the lead group in the closing metres of the 19km-long summit finish at Jebel Jais.

World champion Pogačar jumped from teammate Jay Vine’s wheel to launch the sprint at the end of an ascent dominated by his UAE team. He beat Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL) to the win, while Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) rounded out the podium ahead of reigning champion Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto)

Pogačar’s 89th career win, his seventh at the UAE Tour, sees him take over the red jersey of race leader as former leader Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) dropped from the lead group inside the final kilometre of the day.

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The Slovenian now takes an 18-second lead over Tarling into stage 4 after the Briton crossed the line 26 seconds down. Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) lies in third overall at 23 seconds after finishing eighth on the stage at four seconds.

“It feels amazing. Finally back racing, finally a victory after three days. We are super happy,” Pogačar said after the stage. “We did perfectly on a hard day for the guys. We had no help whatsoever until the final climb and then we executed it really well. Everybody deserves victory today from our team and we’re super happy.

“We asked Ineos if they wanted to pay the honours to the jersey from the start, but we were left alone. Rune [Herregodts] was really good pulling all day and then Lotto helped us a bit and then in the climb we just tried to do our own pace.

“It’s really good to win in the rainbow jersey. Part of me hoped that Tarling would hold on to the bunch and he would keep the jersey, but I will be more than happy to have the leader’s jersey tomorrow instead of the rainbows.

“It’s not finished yet. We have three flat stages, and you never know what happens here. You can lose it really quickly, so nothing is won yet. Tomorrow is the middle point of the race, so we have more than halfway to go.”

How it unfolded

The third stage of the UAE Tour brought potentially the decisive stretch of road of the week – the 19km long climb of the Jebel Jais, the UAE’s highest peak, which featured an average gradient of 5.6% to conclude the 181km day.

An entirely flat run-in to the mountain would bring two intermediate sprints and little else. That didn’t stop five riders from jumping clear right at the very start of the stage, with VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè trio Manuele Tarozzi, Lorenzo Conforti, and Federico Biagini joined by Solution Tech-Vini Fantini duo Đorđe Đurić and Carlos Samudio.

The quintet was let go without any fight from the peloton, as UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Ineos Grenadiers settled in to control the pacemaking behind.

Up front, the break built up a two-minute lead, with black jersey Tarozzi set for a battle with Samudio over the sprint points as both lay on 11 heading into the day, nine down on Josh Tarling and Jonathan Milan.

The first sprint at Al Marjan Island saw Đurić take the maximum eight points ahead of Tarozzi’s five and Samudio’s three. The trio quickly dropped back to Conforti and Biagini to reform the five-man move, pushing on towards the second sprint and the closing climb.

At the front, the attacks began at 50km to go as Tarozzi and Đurić made moves. The attacks and counters would eventually leave Samudio and Biagini clear off the front, the pair all set to contest the final sprint.

There, it was Samudio who led the way across the line, picking up eight points to take him to 22 and ensure the Panamanian would don the black jersey at the end of the stage. The remains of the break would all be swept up before the start of the climb, meanwhile, leaving the duo to lead the race onto Jebel Jais.

At the base of the climb, Samudio and Biagini’s two-minute lead had been cut down to just over 30 seconds after UAE, Ineos, and Lotto had upped the pace in the chase. Meanwhile, there was bad luck for Einer Rubio (Movistar), who lost over 1:30 to a slow bike change just as the climb was getting underway.

Samudio and Biagini lasted just 700 metres of the climb as UAE reeled them in, with the Italian lasting a touch longer before the breakaway was done for the day. At the front, it was Mikkel Bjerg, Florian Vermeersch, and Domen Novak who were hard at work on the front pushing the pace as rider after rider dropped from the rear of the peloton.

Vermeersch’s work was done at the 13km mark, leaving Bjerg and Novak at the head of the peloton with Pogačar having dropped a little further back into the group out of the wind. Meanwhile, Rubio’s long chase came to an end as he made his way back in.

At 11km to go, Jay Vine had moved up front to aid Novak in the pacemaking, though Bjerg continued on the front of the 40-man group. The Dane pushed on until the 7km mark, at which point he pulled off as Novak took over with Lotto, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, and Ineos Grenadiers lined up behind.

It was Decathlon AG2R who took over with four riders when Novak stopped his work at 4.2km to go. By that point, around 20 men were left in the group, including a Pogačar still lying midway down the pack.

It was Felix Gall who made the first big attack of the climb, jumping clear with 2km to run. Vine, with Pogačar in his wheel, quickly shut the move down, however, bringing it all back together for the final run to the line.

Further back, Tarling was struggling to stay in contact, and would be forced to let go from the front, ceding his red jersey along the way. Up front, Vine continued to lead the way, only dropping off the front within sight of the line to launch Pogačar to his stage-winning effort.

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