For the past week, the eyes of the cycling world were turned to the desert sands of the Middle East. For the World Tour weeklong UAE Tour was taking place. We were treated to crosswinds on Stage 1. A Time Trial on Stage 2. A proper summit finish on Stage 3. A traditional sprint on Stage 4. Another summit finish on Stage 5. And two more sprints on Stages 6 and 7. Perhaps it is because we have been deprived of early season racing, but I must say this was excellent viewing all week: in fact the best UAE Tour to date. Certainly, the race beat last year’s edition that was halted midrace as multiple riders tested positive for the Coronavirus, yes it was this time last year when the world began shutting down in earnest. It seems the organizers of the UAE Tour wanted to prove this year that Coronavirus is a thing of the past by putting on a clean edition of this race. Unfortunately, they did not quite achieve that. Hours after Mathieu Van Der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) sprinted to an electric victory in the crosswinds on Stage 1, he and his team’s joy was cut short when one of their staff members tested positive for COVID and the team was unfortunately booted from the race—forced to pack their bags after just one day and with the stage winner and thus race leader to boot. It was unfortunate, but such is life during a pandemic. But beyond the Alpecin incident, I must applaud the organizers that the race went off without a hitch, and was actually a great spectacle. The sprints were good as usual—how could they not be with Quickstep’s Sam Bennett and Lotto’s Caleb Ewan splitting the opportunities two to one while Bora’s Ackermann, Cofidis’ Viviani, Qhubeka’s Nizzolo, Bahrain’s Bauhaus, and Jumbo’s newfound David Dekker were all in the mix behind—but finally a Middle Eastern race had a proper General Classification (GC) battle. This is what held back the separate Dubai and Abu Dhabi Tours, one year Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-Quickstep) won the Dubai GC which should indicate how few meters—centimeters even—of climbing there were back then. But this year, we had a proper battle. To be fair, it was actually only a rematch from last year; but last year a dark Corona cloud hung over the race and the world, and the race was ingloriously cut short. This year was the full proper show, and it was a refreshing start to the World Tour.
It shall surprise no one to learn that the UAE Team always wish to do well at the UAE races, for they do indeed act like the “Home Team.” Thus it was a no-brainer, the announcement months ago really did not even need to be made: the defending Tour de France Champion Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates would be making his season debut at the UAE Tour. Was any real pressure being put on Pogacar’s shoulders? Would he be able to deliver for his home team? Last year he was bested by Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers), would he have better fortune this year?
Yes, he would. Before Stage 1 was even complete, the GC was already down to just a three-horse race. The only GC favorites to make the front echelon in the Crosswinds were Pogacar, Adam Yates, and Joao Almeida (Deceuninck-Quickstep). On Stage 1, four-time Tour champion Chris Froome (Israel Start-Up Nation), Italian living-legend Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Spanish living-legend Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), American climber Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), and Dutchman Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) were already all out of contention—and quite frankly a number of these men seemed totally fine about that come the end of stage one. The Time Trial was a relatively dull affair, though it has quickly become a great joy to watch the Time Trial Champion of the World Filipo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) dominate these races against the clock while wearing the Rainbow Jersey. On that Time Trial, Pog finished in the Top Five and took the Leader’s Jersey, he finished 5 seconds better that Almeida and some 35 seconds ahead of Yates. And thus the biggest showdown came on Stage 3 as the peloton would race to the top of Jebel Hafeet—thus far, the toughest climb the UAE Tour has ever raced up. It was a hard day that threatened crosswinds for its entirety until they got to the base of the 10k climb that finished off the stage. The Grenadiers took control of the front—thus far this season they have not “raced like Brazil” for those keeping track—and they did their usual sorts of damage including putting old team leader Chris Froome to the sword before halfway up the climb. And as the Ineos Grenadiers swung off the front one by one, finally their new import and race leader and defending champion Adam Yates went on the attack. Instantly only two could keep up with Yates, the rest fell out of contention: Pogacar and Jumbo’s Sepp Kuss who climbs like an angel. Yates did all the work, and it was a proper show of force when his high pace cracked Kuss who often seems the best climber in every race he does. And Pogacar actually showed Yates some healthy respect by refusing to pull through for even a single turn: Yates was the man down on GC, they were distancing Almeida which was in both their interests, and if Pogacar took over perhaps Yates would put in an attack that could gap him. Thus it came down to the finish. Surely with training camps and such Pogacar must have reconned and knew this climb inside-out: on the only dip in the road in the last kilometer he put in one blistering and surging attack and sprinted all the way to the finish line from there. Yates barely got back into his slipstream, but he did not enough to come around him and take the victory. Pogacar took his first win of the season. And on Stage 5 to Jebel Jais, he proved the best GC man again. The Jebel Jais is a 20-kilometer climb, but it never gets terribly steep—it is more of a long wearing down grind. But even the mighty Grenadiers had a tough time shelling out the big numbers. Though Jumbo’s Jonas Vingegaard clipped off the front in the last mile to take the stage victory at the top of the climb, behind it really did look like a reduced-bunch sprint and it was Pogacar who showed the fastest pair of wheels in front of Adam Yates once again. And two days later, having gotten through any entanglements on the sprints, Pogacar completed the mission and took victory in his team’s home race.
Thus like Top Ganna in the Time Trials, Tadej Pogacar lays out the GC measuring-rod for the season. With his Tour victory heard ‘round the world last year and his strong performance out of the gates here in February in the UAE, Pogacar surely announces himself as the man to beat this year. What do the GC grey-hairs: the Nibalis and the Froomes have to say about that? More rust do they have to kick off if they are even to hold a candle to this young superstar at some point this season. Pogacar’s calendar looks to contain a traditional-and-yet-not-boring run up to defend his Tour title: Strade Bianche next weekend, a pair of weeklong World Tour stage races, Fleche and Liege, the Dauphine, and then the Tour itself in July. Pogacar showed this week to easily have the best combination of the time-trialing and climbing at the race. He kept up with Yates’ high pace in the mountains having already put the needed time into him on the TT. Thus he needed not even reveal if that was on the limit climbing, but we can now keep in mind over a flat 13km Time Trial he only lost 24 seconds to Top Ganna. Yes, with this performance Pogacar sets the tone and says the road to Tour victory must go through him before it makes its way to Paris.
Perhaps all my words have sounded too routine and normal today, this probably is the case. But in recent years, it is unregular to be able to say routine complements about GC affairs in Middle Eastern races, this is a pleasant first or second for me. Yes, despite the decimation of the early season racing UAE Tour was the one we all knew would pull through, and just because of the fact it did: perhaps I look more favorably on something that was actually average and in the past always below average. But after a year of a worldwide pandemic, perhaps average is not simply good, but great. If the whole rest of the season is average, I highly doubt I will be complaining.
Cycling Odysseys 