UAE Tour

Tim Merlier continued to write history at the UAE Tour by becoming the first rider since the race’s inception to claim six stage victories at the World Tour event, where Friday afternoon he unleashed another trademark long sprint to reign supreme in Dubai.

It was a fast day of racing, the peloton averaging more than 48km/h on the pan-flat route of the fifth stage – the fastest ever here – which was animated by an 11-man breakaway, brought back thanks to a superb effort of the Soudal Quick-Step boys, who once again did a magnificent job in the peloton while making sure their sprinter remained protected and out of the wind at all times.

The finale was marred by two crashes in the space of three kilometers, but fortunately the European Champion wasn’t involved in any of these incidents, and after being deployed by the excellent Bert Van Lerberghe in the wheel of the green jersey, he came out of that slipstream with around 250 meters to go and thanks to a ferocious turn of legs, blasted to a spectacular victory – our first World Tour one of the season.

“It’s the third consecutive year that I won a stage at this race and I’m happy we were able to pull it off today. The team did a flawless job today and made sure I was where I needed to be in the final kilometer, where I could choose the right moment to start my sprint. We learned from what happened yesterday and I am delighted that we can celebrate a victory today at this race that I like a lot. There will be one more opportunity for the sprinters on Saturday and we’ll do our best to be again in the mix”, said Tim after delivering Soudal Quick-Step’s 990th all-time victory.

Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images