The men's WorldTour racing season resumes February 19 at the 2024 UAE Tour, with the first two events of the top tier held in Australia last month, Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
The sixth edition of the UAE Tour runs for seven days, concluding on February 27 with the climb of Jebel Hafeet, which has been the grand finale of the seven-day stage race on multiple occasions. The race brings together top GC riders and sprinters around the peloton this year with 16 WorldTour squads and four ProTeams on the start in Abu Dhabi.
Cyclingnews will bring you full coverage, reports, results, news, interviews and analysis of the 2024 UAE Tour. Read on to find out how to watch the race via live stream, no matter your location, with ExpressVPN.
A fierce GC battle is expected as the riders take on the traditional flat stages and two uphill finales at Jebel Jais and Jebel Hafeet. An individual time trial returns this year with a 12.1km course with several technical sections at the outdoor recreational centre on Al Hudayriyat island.
Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) returns with an eye on the GC, as he comes off a GC win at Tour of Oman. Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) makes his debut at the UAE Tour, arriving fresh from a victory at Vuelta a Murcia. Yates, who finished third last year, won the UAE Tour in 2020 and was second in 2021 and 2022.
Rivals at this year's race for the overall include Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), Jan Hirt (Soudal-QuickStep) and Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).
There is always a strong field for the sprints, led by Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), who already has his first win of the season from Tour Colombia. There are three flat finishes in Dubai Harbour, Umm Al Quwain and Abu Dhabi breakwater, with the latter offering the same finish location from the 2022 race where Cavendish took the victory.
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Among the fast men expected to challenge for domination are Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious), Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers).
How to watch the UAE Tour in the USA & Canada
The UAE Tour will be aired by Max in the USA. A subscription to the service will set you back $10 per month or $100 per year with ads, $16/$150 for an ad-free experience, or $200 per year for the 'Ultimate' package, which includes additional devices and 4k resolution where available.
In addition to that, you'll need to pay for the B/R Sports add-on, which costs an extra $10 per month.
For Canadian viewers, FloBikes will be your port of call. A subscription will set you back CAN$150 for the year or CAN$29.99 on a monthly basis.
How to watch the UAE Tour in the UK
In the UK, live coverage of the race will continue to be broadcast via Eurosport and Discovery+ – with the same commentators that featured on GCN+.
A 'standard' subscription to Discovery+, which includes Eurosport's cycling coverage, will set you back £6.99 per month or £59.99 per year. The package includes year-round cycling streams as well as other live sports, including snooker, tennis, motorsports, the Paris Olympic Games, and more.
A premium subscription, which includes all that plus TNT Sports (Premier League, Champions League and Europa League football plus rugby, wrestling, UFC, and MotoGP), costs an additional £29.99 per month.
Best VPN for streaming live cycling
If you are outside of your home region and need to access your live streaming services to watch the action, you may find your access to be geo-restricted.
In this case, a VPN service will come in handy, allowing your computer to pretend it's home and let you log into your streaming accounts to catch all of the racing action.
Our colleagues at TechRadar thoroughly tested several VPN services and came up with a few great recommendations below.
Try ExpressVPN risk-free for 30 days ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money back guarantee with its VPN service. You can use it to watch on your mobile, tablet, laptop, TV, games console and more. There's 24/7 customer support and three months free when you sign-up.
There are a couple other very good options that are safe, reliable and offer good bandwidth for streaming sports. Check out the best two options below - NordVPN and the best budget option, Surfshark.
NordVPN - get the world's favorite VPN We've put all the major VPNs through their paces and we rate NordVPN as the best for streaming Netflix as our top pick, thanks to its speed, ease of use and strong security features. It's also compatible with just about any streaming device out there, including Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Xbox and PlayStation, as well as Android and Apple mobiles.
Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. She has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast). Her favorite road and gravel rides are around horse farms in north Georgia (USA) and around lavender fields in Provence (France), and some mtb rides in Park City, Utah (USA).
