UAE Tour stage 6: Roglic wins atop Jebel Jais

Again proving his potential as a GC rider, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) won the UAE Tour’s crucial stage 6 ahead of Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) Friday. This all but sealed the Slovenian’s overall victory in the seven-stage race. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) was third on the mountaintop finish.

Although Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) had beaten Roglic on the race’s first summit finish in stage 3, the world champion was not a factor atop the 20-kilometer climb to finish stage 3.

“It’s always nice to win a race,” said Roglic. “I fell short [in stage 3] before today and I finally won; that’s why I looked happy when I crossed the finishing line.”

Heading into the flat final stage Saturday, Valverde was 31 seconds behind in second overall. Gaudu kept his third-place standing, 44 seconds back.

The peloton faced very windy conditions in the 175km race across the desert. With a profile like a hockey stick, the route was whipped by the gusts for the first flat 150 kilometers before turning uphill to ride the long, steady climb.

“Today we showed again as a team how strong we are,” he said. “I’m really happy that I managed to finish it off. It wasn’t a direct fight with Valverde at the end. From the beginning of the stage, our guys protected me from the wind.”

The Jumbo-Visma team set a hard pace at the front of the peloton throughout the majority of the climb.

“The tempo in the last few kilometers was incredibly high, and because of the wind, there was no point in attacking,” said Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) who ended up eighth on the day.

Roglic credited his team for protecting him from the winds in the lead-in to the finish climb.

Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) was first to launch an attack, about 300 meters to go.

Dumoulin, the 2018 Giro d’Italia winner, attacked early in the finale. Roglic managed to surge past in the waning meters to the finish line.

“I was on the wheel of the Sunweb rider [Dumoulin] who launched the sprint from very far out,” said Gaudu. “I couldn’t get out of his slipstream but Roglic managed to do that on the left-hand side. He was one leg above everyone today.”

Saturday’s stage 7 will be one final opportunity for the sprinters, a flat 145km race through the streets of Dubai.