“It would have been a shame for the stage to finish with a bunch sprint,” was Pello Bilbao’s explanation for launching the final, successful echelon attack of stage 1 of the UAE Tour and gaining some vital time on GC.
Thanks to the attack, together with Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuckStep) and Luke Plapp (Ineos Grenadiers), Bilbao, third last year, has gained nearly a minute on all the other contenders ahead of Tuesday’s crunch team time trial and Wednesday’s first summit finish.
The team time trial will obviously make yet more differences on GC, but after two years of solid domination by the UAE Emirates squad in their home race, the 13-man attack on stage 1 has blown the race wide open. With Tuesday’s team time trial in mind, Bilbao will be heartened by the fact the move contained three of his Bahrain Victorious teammates.
Evenepoel is the highest profile of the GC contenders to have benefited, but Bilbao is an obvious threat, given his track record in the UAE Tour from previous years and his very strong start to the season, which included third place overall and a stage win at the Tour Down Under.
Bilbao echoed Luke Plapp’s comments after the stage, saying that given the way an identical UAE Tour stage in 2021 had played out in the crosswinds, Bahrain Victorious had been more than expecting a similar scenario on Monday when they were alerted to the strong breeze blowing through the desert.
“It was what we expected, the last time they started from that castle, the same thing happened, with echelons from the gun and today we knew what was coming,” Bilbao told Cyclingnews after finishing ninth at the line.
“We were waiting for that moment right from the start to take the initiative. We were ready.”
After nearly 90 kilometres off the front, with Bahrain Victorious making much of the running, Bilbao said he and his teammates saw things were coming together again “and we thought that was a pity it might end up re-uniting and that we’d miss an opportunity.”
Cue part two of the operation, as Bilbao recounted. “So we decided to go flat out with everything and see if we could break it all up again, and it worked out well.”
Bilbao said that the collaboration between the GC teams on the front had been more than solid. “Remco gave it everything, I was pulling as hard as I could, and Ineos was working well as well. Let’s say we’ve cleaned up the overall classification a bit and we’ve got a good advantage now.”
As much as the time gained, any advantage over the rivals with a surprise attack is always a boost to the morale. “And after all the hard work the team did, always taking the initiative and being so brave, it would have been a pity if we’d just reached the finish in a big group,” said Bilbao.
“We knew folks were tired, and so we tried again, and we pushed them hard…and tomorrow [Tuesday] there’s another team time trial,” he concluded with a grin. But with the advantage gained by Bahrain Victorious, Ineos Grenadiers and Soudal-QuickStep in the GC battle, Bilbao will be rolling down the start ramp in Khalifa Port with a significant time cushion already in his favour.
