The opening day of racing at the UAE Tour saw the peloton take on much the same route as they have done in previous years but all eyes on the morning were on the weather forecast and potential echelons. Nothing materialised though and the day’s early breakaway was kept on under control before the sprint teams took over in the finale. Moving up as a unit, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL aimed to bring fast finisher Fabio Jakobsen into a good position for the finale. Yet with all of the sprint teams doing the same, things became chaotic in the final and after originally holding a good spot, the team lost each other a bit going through the last roundabout and the ensuing crash. Navigating through a gap on the right side of the road, Jakobsen was able to open up his sprint and finished fast, coming past several riders to take a solid fourth place at the line.
After the stage Jakobsen expressed: “I think it was a decent start to the race for us but it was a messy sprint in the end. We stayed together quite well until one kilometre to go, where it got chaotic in the bunch. It was then an all-out effort to the line. I’m confident that we’ll get a chance at fighting for the win here. Fourth is a positive start to the week and I’m quite happy with how the final went.”