Tadej Pogacar wins UAE Tour as Caleb Ewan takes final stage

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Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) pipped Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) to the line in a bunch sprint to win the final stage of the UAE Tour.

Bennett was denied a third stage win by the Australian, who managed to grab his wheel in the finale, and come past him just before the finish line. 

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates) successfully sealed the overall victory, after neutralising the threat posed by his main rival Adam Yates and his Ineos Grenadiers team in the crosswinds earlier in the stage. 

Pogacar was one of around twenty riders who broke clear from the peloton at around 40km to go, opening a lead of 30 seconds before everything came back together. 

In the sprint, Ewan benefited from the best lead-out his Lotto-Soudal team managed in the race. Even then, however, more great work from Bennett’s lead-out man Michael Morkov ensured the Irishman was best-place before the sprint started.

Ewan managed to surf a few wheels before landing on Bennett’s, moving past him on the right-hand side of the road once the sprint began, and claiming victory by a bike-length. Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious) was third.

Having missed out in all the sprints earlier in the race, with third on stage 4 his best finish so far, Ewan was under pressure to win today. 

"We came here to win a stage, and there was only one more left, and my last few sprints were quite average. So there was a bit of pressure on me to have a good result today," he said.

"The team went above and beyond and did such a great job. I got to the end in pretty good shape, and that allowed me to do a good sprint.

“Roger [Kluge] went left a little bit late and we started to get swamped already. Then I had to jump from his wheel quite early. But I saw Sam [Bennett] coming on the right with a fair bit of speed, and there was room for me to go. That was really the only way out, so I got past his wheel and was allowed to, and had a fair bit of speed.  

“It was a bit of a relief. I haven’t been this far into the year without a win in my whole career. So it feels good to have a win before I go back to Europe and start my season there.”

The GC remained the same as it did at the start of the day, although there was a worry for Adam Yates when he went down in a crash. He suffered several cuts to his face, but his legs appeared to be fine, and he managed to finish in the peloton to seal second overall.

How it unfolded

On another pan flat parcours in the desert, beginning in Yas Mall island and finishing at Abu Dhabi, the only way it seemed likely that the GC could change was if the wind blew again.

The stage began formulaically enough, with three riders heading up the rode to form the day’s break: Samuele Battistella (Astana-Premier Tech), Matteo Sobrero (both Astana-Premier Tech) and Alexeys Brunel (Groupama-FDJ).

They built a lead that exceeded three minutes, before the peloton began working to bring them back.

At the first intermediate sprint of the day, David Dekker (Jumbo-Visma) claimed fourth place behind the three breakaway riders, to extend his lead in the points classification. 

It had been a quiet day up until this point, but then, at 65km to go, the race burst into life as Ineos Grenadiers upped the pace to exploit the potential of the road’s changing of direction into crosswinds.

The effect was immediate, as echelons formed and a group no bigger than 20 riders broke clear.

Overall leader Tadej Pogacar and his main challenger Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) were among them, as were sprinters Calab Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) and Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep), but third overall Joao Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and the green jersey David Dekker were less attentive, and found themselves in the trailing group. 

The increased pace saw the day’s earlier three-man break swallowed up, and the new leading group opened a lead of around 30 seconds over the rest of the peloton. 

EF Education-Nippo did most of the work in the chase, as they attempted to neutralise the situation to protect Neilson Powless' fifth position on GC. Once other teams started offering some turns, and the gap began to come down, and with 45km to go, the lead group sat up, allowing both groups to rejoin.

Despite the calming of the citation, there was more drama at 41km to go as Adam Yates crashed near the front of the bunch. Yates suffered a cut to his face, but managed to eventually remount his bike and rejoin the peloton, which had slowed down to allow him and the other riders held up to catch up. 

The action only ignited again on the approach to the final intermediate sprint of the day, when Powless shot out of the front of the peloton with a teammate in search of the bonus seconds that would see him leapfrog Chris Harper (Jumbo-Visma) into fourth overall. He was unsuccessful, however, as Dekker took the maximum points, and helped his Jumbo-Visma teammate to finish the intermediate sprint behind him in second.

Not wanting to be involved in another crash, Ineos Grenadiers rode at the front of the peloton as the race approached the finishing sprint. And indeed there was another crash, as Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo) near the middle of the bunch.

Deceuninck-QuickStep took over at the front with 2.5km to ride, although faced competition from several other teams attempting to lead out their sprinters. Once again, though, it was Morkov who led the race as the finish line approached, although this time Sam Bennett couldn’t quite finish off the job in the final dash.