photo crests @WTFK
Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) continued his winning ways, notching up his third victory in stage 6 of the UAE Tour in Abu Dhabi today, with a well-timed sprint that saw the Belgian rider beat Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) on the line in another hotly contested sprint finale.
Meanwhile, race leader Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) finished safely in the peloton to retain the red jersey into the final stage and the summit finish atop Jebel Hafeet.
“Everything went perfect today with the team,” Merlier said at the finish. “We are where we want to be and I can go with my sprint where I want to go. Perfect week for us.
“They brought me really good until about 1.5 to go, and then Bert [Van Lerberghe] wanted to go really early, but then he slowed down a bit and then it was all or nothing. If you do that you can be boxed in, but it didn’t happen, and I went from a good spot.
“It’s a perfect week here. Yesterday was a close one, but it’s nicer to have a nice picture of it.”
Race Highlights
The first part of the stage was a familiar story, with a very early battle for the breakaway, with Jonas Rickaert, Henri Uhlig (both Alpecin-Deceuninck), Eddy Finé (Cofidis), Marco Murgano (Corratec-Vini Fantini) and Juan Pedro López (Lidl-Trek) eventually riding clear and establishing a modest advantage of around one minute over the peloton.
The situation remained stable and calm for most of the stage, with very little action on the flat, wide roads around Abu Dhabi. The gap began to go down heading into the final 40km, as the pace slowly picked up in the peloton and they began to reel in the breakaway as the race neared the city.
Uhlig, Finé and Murgano were the final survivors of the break, pushing on as long as possible, but eventually rejoined the bunch with 12km to go. The teams began to get into lead-out formation at this point, but the pace was still relatively calm compared to the more chaotic run-ins on the preceding days.
Things began to heat up heading into the final 4km, as the pace shot up and organised teams began fighting for position on the front of the bunch. Jayco AlUla led the race into the final kilometre, trying to deliver Dylan Groenewegen to a win, but the Dutchman was dropped off early and had to sprint on the front for a long time.
Entering the final few hundred meters, the green jersey of Merlier looked to be slightly boxed in with around five riders still ahead of him, and had to launch his sprint early to move up, but once he reached full speed he was unmatched, coming through a small gap on the right hand side of the road to take his third victory of the week.
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