The glass was definitely half-full for Sam Welsford on Thursday at the UAE Tour as the DSM sprinter was just outpaced by Juan Sebastian Molano and Olav Kooij, but came away with his first-ever WorldTour podium nonetheless.
Already a double winner at the Vuelta a San Juan, Welsford, an Australian former team pursuiter, showed he had not lost that form in the UAE Tour when he went on the attack for 90 kilometres on stage 1 as part of the first big echelon of the day.
Welsford’s January success in San Juan was all the more notable given some top sprint names like Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep), Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) were taking part.
But while UAE Tour has an even deeper field of sprinters, to judge by his performance at Dubai Harbour the former double Olympic track medalist has clearly stepped up his game to match the challenge.
“It was a very long sprint for me, I had the run coming off Gaviria and followed him into the finish and had the speed, so I just had to commit,” Welsford told a small group of reporters near the line.
“In those situations, it’s millisecond differences, so I made the decision to use his speed and just go," he said.
“It was a bit longer than I expected to the finish, and I could feel Olav coming up on my left. I didn’t even see Molano, he came up with that much speed.
“But it’s a good start to the three days of sprints we have at UAE, so I’m really excited to keep cracking onto the next one, improve the things we can and hopefully get on that top step.”
Welsford agreed with Kooij’s post-stage analysis that the sprint was by no means a conventional ‘European’ one. The usual much narrower roads and technical approaches of that part of the world were light years away from the multi-lane highways of downtown Dubai, although Welsford found similarities to where he’d recently been racing and winning in Argentina.
“It is similar to San Juan with those big roads and being super-fast,” he said, “that corner with 700 metres to go was a big fight, and then it was a big scrap all the way to the line.”
Fighting a cross-head wind all the way, “Everyone was all over the place, and it was actually quite hard to the finish, and that’s probably why you saw the sprint was so wide and spread out. Everyone was trying to get through at the same time.”
The hell-for-leather, chaotic nature of the sprint perhaps explained the absence of plenty of top names from the top part of the stage classification, and certainly, Welsford thought it was maybe because “it was pretty hectic coming into the final, and it all depended on where you were on that last corner and how much speed you took through it.”
Furthermore, the absence of tough terrain beforehand on a pan-flat stage was “a bit of a double-edged sword," he said.
“Easy days mean the sprint will be super-hard, you’ll be a lot fresher, but there’ll be a lot more fresher guys leading out as well, and the last two or three kilometres are going to be full gas.
“It’s hard to stay in a lead-out because it’s so wide with maybe 10 people across, if you’re fifth wheel, you’re almost at the back of the pack before you know it.”
“With these finishes, it’s all about just being forward, and because the pace is so high, especially round that corner if you’re more than like 10 back, it’s impossible to move up because the pace is 65-70 kilometres an hour.
“And to come forward and sprint at that pace is extremely hard. You need big speed, and big gears, I was riding a 56, and I was almost tapped out. Super-different from Europe, which is more about the position and having a lead-out.
“For me, either way, it’s my first-ever WorldTour podium, so it’s definitely a nice one for me. It’s a stepping stone, moving forward.”
After a long track career in Team Pursuit and Scratch had netted him multiple World Championships titles as well as those Olympic medals, Welsford said that in 2023, his flying start shows that he is reaping the benefits of coming in fresh off his first full season on the road in 2022.
He added that on such fast finishes like Dubai, with so many riders having options, knowing exactly what position you have when crossing the line is never straightforward.
“I thought I was first or second, I didn’t even see Molano until I saw the finishing video, and I was like ‘oh, shit’, you know," he said, while Molano also added he had no idea he had won until afterwards.
”But I was pretty happy," Welsford concluded, "you never die wondering if you go early and take your chances. So no regrets, and I’m even more motivated for tomorrow.”
