Viviani claims overall victory after winning final stage
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Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) wins the Dubai Tour.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) in the lead at the Dubai Tour.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) sprints to stage victory at the Dubai Tour.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Elia Viviani is congratulated by Quick-Step Floors teammate Niki Terpstra.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) won the 2018 Dubai Tour ahead of Magnus Cort (Astana) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida).(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) continued his fine start to the 2018 season by winning stage 5 of the Dubai Tour to seal final overall victory ahead of Magnus Cort (Astana) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida).
The short final leg of the Dubai Tour was always likely to end in a bunch sprint, and so it proved, despite the fine efforts of early attackers Daniel Pearson, Sun Xiaolong (Mitchelton-BikeExchange), Quentin Valognes (Novo-Nordisk) and Nasser Almemari (UAE Team Emirates).
The stage was set for a breathless sprint finale, but a crash inside the final kilometre eliminated Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) from contention.
Viviani was left with work to do in the final 200 metres, but he produced a fine sprint effort to overhaul Marco Haller (Katusha-Alpecin) at the line, while Adam Blythe (Aqua Blue Sport) closed rapidly to take third.
In the overall standings, Viviani finished 12 seconds clear of Cort, with Colbrelli a further two seconds back in third.
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