Young Scotclimbs to fifth overall despite showing 'inexperience' pursuing world champion, while Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider finishes sixth on GC
Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) crosses the finish line atop Jebel Hafeet during stage 7 at the UAE Tour(Image credit: Getty Images)
Many riders have paid the price of trying to follow Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) when he makes one of his searing attacks, but among the latest to get burned while pursuing the Slovenian's wheel were Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) and Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Onley and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) responded best at first but only the latter could maintain his effort all the way to the finish line to climb to second overall, while Fisher-Black dropped back after his initial burst and faded on GC from fourth to sixth.
Both men were exhausted at the finish line. Onley was forced to sit by the side of a van and wipe sweat from his eyes thanks to the 30-degree heat, while Fisher-Black sat just a few metres away in the same car park as he recovered from the effort.
"I knew it was just about suffering and in the beginning it felt quite good, the first ten minutes. I even tried to follow Tadej when he went but I think I found out straight away that he's on another level," Fisher-Black told Cyclingnews and Velo at the finish.
"Not that I didn't know that before but then it was just about trying to ride my pace until the finish, I was trying to surf some wheels because of the strong headwind but in the end, I could only do what I could do. But happy as I think it was a top 10.
"Hid acceleration is always lethal but then I saw he settled down and for the next five minutes, he wasn't too far in front. I was thinking I could maybe come back to Onley and Ciccone but each minute more, I got a bit more in the hurt box, so I just went back to the Movistar guys and tried to ride my own race from there."
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Fisher-Black got dropped in the final and ended the stage in seventh. But he ultimately added this top-six finish in the UAE to his third-place from the Tour Down Under, marking a great start to his time with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe after he left Pogačar's team in the summer.
Despite suffering the same fate as Fisher-Black thanks to following Pogačar, Onley ended the stage in fifth place, 1:16 down, and fifth overall, climbing five places from where he started the final day.
"It was just a really hard day actually, especially with the wind. I'm pretty empty," Onley told Cyclingnews and Velo as he tried to find his breath at the finish.
"I was definitely in the red [following Pogačar's attack], a bit of inexperience there probably. I maybe should have stayed with the Movistar boys and [Pello] Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious).
"But you don't know if you don't try. I think everyone's done it and it's good fun to kind of be racing with him."
Surviving the crosswind chaos and looking ahead to the Ardennes
Finn Fisher-Black finishes stage 7 atop Jebel Hafeet at the UAE Tour (Image credit: Getty Images)
Racing was almost on from the gun on stage 7, as it has been most of the week in the UAE, with crosswinds 126km from the line seeing a crucial front echelon form with the majority of big favourites present.
After getting let off from missing the front split in the crosswinds on stage 4, Picnic PostNL and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe nailed their strategy to ensure their GC leaders had a chance to fight out the win.
"Before the stage, that was what I was most nervous about, missing one of those splits, and I was pretty happy just to be there," said Onley, with defending champion Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto) ad Jay Vine (UAE) among those to miss out.
"It was just full gas all day, for sure it took something out of me but I had to be there otherwise you saw where the other guys were. It's been a good week of learning and obviously, with the crosswinds, that's not something I've done so much."
"I was pretty confident with the guys we have that we could be there in the crosswinds and the guys all rode like MVPs today so they could set me up for the last climb," said Fisher-Black, who was relishing his second race as a leader after looking for more opportunities with his team switch.
"It's pretty special for me because I've never really had that leader's role before. All these guys really believe in me - like today, we have a full sprint train and they could have taken the day off today, but they really backed me and gave me everything.
"I saw how much they were suffering pulling in the wind in the end so I'm really grateful for that."
The pair may have both gotten burned chasing the wheel of Pogačar but this nonetheless culminates in a great start to the season for both men. After Fisher-Black failed to get opportunities at UAE and Onley sustained several injuries last year, the 23- and 22-year-olds have certainly added to their stock as GC riders.
As natives of Andorra, Onley and Fisher-Black will now head home to the Pyrenees before some time up at altitude and their next blocks of racing. Coincidentally, they will be against each other once more at Itzulia Basque Country and the Ardennes Classics, where they'll again meet Pogačar and be forced to decide whether they try to follow him or not.
James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.
