UAE Tour: Viviani wins sprint in Khor Fakkan

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Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) won stage 5 of the UAE Tour to Khor Fakkan, coming from behind to find a way past his rivals and beat Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates), Marcel Kittel (Katusha-Alpecin) and Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the high-speed sprint finish.

Alexander Kristoff again gave Gaviria a superb lead-out but perhaps left him out front a little early into the headwind. Viviani was stuck behind but used his sprinting and bike skills to find a way through and then came up between Gaviria and the barriers. The four sprinters were spread across the road as they hit the line, but Viviani won it by a half a bike length.

Viviani made a superb piece of technical sprinting look easy and was proud to have beaten most of his big-name sprint rivals in the peloton. It was his 70th career victory and his third win of the 2019 season.

"I think with the best sprinters in the world, the hardest thing is to wait. I don't know who finished second and third but it was a chaotic finish," Viviani explained.

"For sure I'm really proud of myself and my team because it's never easy after a successful season like last year and you see Fernando [Gaviria] is no longer our teammate. My lead-out train worked really well and we were thinking about our tactics in the last few days because after the first stage, we wanted to win. As always, the team did a fantastic job, thanks to my teammates."

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) finished in the peloton and so kept his overall race lead before Friday's decisive mountain finish to Jebel Jais. His teammates rode on the front to keep the break under control but were careful to save their strength for Friday's stage.

"As expected, it was a long day in the saddle but I didn't really get bored because we always had to be attentive in the desert with the crosswinds. Again, our team did a great job, who protected my time. For sure, we're ready for tomorrow's decisive stage," Roglic said.

How it happened

The 181km was a ride across the UAE peninsular, with a finish on the coast. Stages of the Dubai Tour have finished in Fujairah but this stage headed further up the coast to Khor Fakkan.

Again the Novo Nordisk and Gazprom-Rusvelo riders jumped in the early break to fight for the intermediate sprints leader's black jersey and the green points jersey.

Charles Planet (Novo Nordisk) rode in the black jersey today, with Stepan Kurianov (Gazprom) in the green jersey. They were joined by Anton Vorobyev and Sergey Shilov for Gazprom, and Fabio Calabria for Novo Nordisk today, to help in the intermediate sprints.

The peloton let them get on with it up front, preferring to ride steady at an average of 36kph for much of the stage, riding united and avoiding the creation of echelons as sand often blew across the road.

Planet beat Kurianov to win the early intermediate sprint but the second sprint with 44km to go was a real battle. Kurianov got a perfect lead-out from his teammate, and Gazprom also took second place, with Planet only third. That meant Kurianov would pull on the black points intermediate sprints jersey as well as the green points jersey.

With the sprints decided, the break lost speed and was soon swept up by the peloton with Lotto Soudal leading for their sprinter Caleb Ewan. Calabria was the last rider to be caught with 30km to go.

For a while the peloton hesitated, preferring not to fight for the position too early in the lead-out, with Vegard Stake Laengen helping with some hard work on the front for UAE Team Emirates.

Kristoff is a world-class sprinter in his own right and showed by the way he surged passed the Deceuninck-QuickStep lead-out train to position Gaviria. Viviani was stuck behind as other riders came up but he kept his nerve and waited for his chance.

Kristoff dropped off Gaviria a little early and Viviani saw his chance. As other riders faded, he accelerated and somehow managed to find a way through. Gaviria was fading as the line approached and Viviani managed to beat him by going up the left and hold off the other sprinters who were on the right.

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