Tadej Pogacar resisted the flurry of attacks by Adam Yates to keep his lead and take a strong win in the third stage of the UAE Tour. Despite threats of Echelons no-one was caught behind splits today, it was all to play for in the final climb where UAE set the pace, later to be upped by Ineos, and then several attacks by Adam Yates dislodged everyone but Pogacar. They finished 48 seconds in front of the chasing group led by Sergio Higuita.
Positive: Pogacar took the biggest step in winning the Tour, resisted all of the big moves and distanced Almeida. Florian Stork was a massive surprise for me in the front group, some more smaller names also got the opportunity to have a good result today in front of a big array of stars like Vanhoucke and Bouchard.
Negative: I was expecting a lot more from the Bahrain riders, none managed to have a strong performance today, Masnada, Valverde, Muhlberger and Lutsenko also failed to perform.
The Route
It's another stage designed for the sprinters. Will the wind allow that though?
In case it does, which it should, it's far from a technical finish. Once inside the Marjan Island the peloton will go through a slightly twisting road until 2.8 kilometers to go, whith a big roundabout set to stretch things out into the final straight, which will again be slightly winding until the finish.
The Weather
Strong win from the east. It's a little different than the last few days, it will be around 20-25Km/h constantly which will be enough to put everyone on their edge, and with some strong gusts and stretching echelons can once again appear. There will be a long section throughout the day that will have dangerous crosswinds, however headwind will be present quite a lot aswell in the final part of the stage, as for the expected sprint finale the direction will slightly change as they go through the island, the wind for the final kilometer though comes as a cross-tailwind, it'll be extremely fast.
The Favourites
The sprinter's list is quite big but despite that the only sprint stage so far was blown up by the wind, the big guns are still waiting for an opportunity to fight for a win and tomorrow will hopefuly be the day for them. I've used this in the opening stage's preview and it is quite suiting once again to mention since there was 0 leadout action there.
Caleb Ewan - Jasper de Buyst - Roger Kluge
Sam Bennett - Michael Morkov - Shane Archbold
Giacomo Nizzolo - Max Walscheid - Matteo Pelucchi - Lasse Norman Hansen
Cees Bol - Alberto Dainese - Nikias Arndt
Fernando Gaviria - Max Richeze - Mikkel Bjerg
Pascal Ackermann - Michael Schwarzmann - Martin Laas
Phil Bauhaus - Fred Wright
Elia Viviani - Attilio Viviani - Fabio Sabatini
Matteo Moschetti - Emils Liepins
Luka Mezgec/Kaden Groves - Michael Hepburn
David Dekker finished 2nd in the opening stage and although it's unsure how good his leadout would work he can get in front by himself, he's a powerhouse sprint and will surely love this finale, exactly like Andre Greipel but the German's issue is that chaotic finished are currently too much for him usually, as he's lost that edge he used to have (but he has kept his maximum power).
It's a stage that will be windy, surely a very chaotic finish and one suited for the heavyweight sprinters that have in UAE good opportunities to succeed. In that sense some will have surely a more natural advantage than others, seeing that riders like Ewan and Viviani don't take as much advantage from their aerodynamics, it's one where pure max power is vital.
Prediction Time
⭐ Ackermann, Dekker, Gaviria, Viviani, Moschetti, Mezgec, Groves
It's pretty much pretending that the opening stage didn't happen ahah. The bunch sprint didn't happen there, maybe it'll happen tomorrow and if it does my call is once again Sam Bennett, he shouldn't be caught out anymore seeing how focused Deceuninck is in protecting Almeida and possibly attacking the race.
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