Jasper Philipsen won the season’s first WorldTour race at the UAE Tour on Sunday, when the Alpecin-Fenix rider won a hard-fought sprint ahead of Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers)
Other than a five-man outburst that was curbed just under 20 kilometers from the end of the 184-kilometer stage that started and ended in Madinat Zayed, and a small crash in the field that resulted in Rick Zabel (Israel-Premier Tech) hit the deck, it was a largely uneventful day of racing. Uneventful, that is, until the pace increased and the sprinters came to the fore.
With a packed field of world-class sprinters at the UAE Tour, it will have surprised to see Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl run on the front in the final kilometers in an attempt to guide Mark Cavendish towards his second victory of the year – the Briton took a stage at this month’s Tour of Oman. However, the Belgian team slowed down so that BikeExchange-Jayco could replace them at the tip of an arrowhead formation.
As the packed crowd approached the line, it looked like Dylan Groenewegen, who joined BikeExchange-Jayco from Jumbo-Visma during the closing window, was in the seat for the stage victory. But the Dutchman’s lead-out train relaxed in what turned out to be a quick and hectic final.
Cavendish, who sounded relaxed in an interview with Eurosport prior to the stage, seemed to lose half a pedal stroke as he appeared to be overwhelmed the last few meters as he was pushed slightly off course while Groenewegen saw himself squeezed against the right hand barrier by Philipsen, who insisted on taking the victory in the first outing of the year.