Wearing the rainbow jersey, Pogačar stormed across the finish line ahead of runner-up Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) and third-placed Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) to claim his first win of the 2025 season and his 86th career victory.
The opening stages have offered fans some exciting finishes and none had, so far, played into Pogačar's or UAE Team Emirates' favour. Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) secured the opening stage win after Sebastián Molano crashed and Pogačar made a rare mistake on the uphill finish, opened up the sprint too early, and finished tenth.
In the time trial the next day, Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) covered the 12.2km flat course at a searing average speed of 56.671km/h to claim his first victory of the 2025 season and with it, the red leader's jersey.
Pogačar finished third but while he may have lost out to the time trial specialists, he built a small lead over his rivals for the general classification and moved up to third overall ahead of the stage 3 summit finish up Jebel Jais.
At the end of the 181km from Ras al Khaimah to Jebel Jais, Pogačar jumped from teammate Jay Vine’s wheel to launch the sprint in the final pitches of an ascent dominated by his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad.
“It feels amazing. Finally back racing, finally a victory after three days. We are super happy. We did perfectly on a hard day for the guys," Pogačar said in a post-race interview, elated with his first win of the season, and on UAE Team Emirates home soil making it extra special.
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On the podium, Pogačar donned the red jersey of race leader as overnight leader Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) slipped to second place at 18 seconds back, Pablo Castrillo (Movistar Team) in third place overall at 23 seconds back.
At a race where the peloton questioned if they could feasibly beat Pogačar, given his dominance last season and the strength of his team, the Slovenian now looks in pole position to make good on his reputation and win the overall title with four stages to go including the mountaintop finale at Jebel Hafeet.
Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.
Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.
She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.
