UAE Tour stage 5: Jonas Vingegaard pips favorites at Jebel Jais summit finish

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) jumped with about 1km to go to surprise the favorites to win Thursday’s fifth stage at the UAE Tour.

Overnight leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Emirates) countered late out of a big GC group to finish second to widen his overall lead to 45 seconds, with Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) crossing the line third to retain second overall.

“I timed it quite well,” Vingegaard said. “It was going a bit easy in the peloton, and I was thinking, maybe I can try. I am very happy, and it’s a big victory for me. It’s very big for me to win here so early in the season.”

Neilson Powless (EF Education-Nippo) defended his fifth place overall with a solid climb. Sepp Kuss, who helped Jumbo-Visma teammate Chris Harper defend fourth overall, came across the line seventh on the stage.

The 170km stage featured an early breakaway in the dazzling route across the Emirati desert ending with the week’s second and final summit finale at Jebel Jais. The 20km final summit averaged 5.4 percent grade, and got steeper as it neared the finish line. The big, wide roads saw a big GC group still intact with 5km to go, including Chris Froome (Israel Start-Up Nation), who was enjoying a better day in the saddle before peeling off with under 4km to go.

Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) was part of the day’s main breakaway, and still held on with a 35-second gap off the front with 3.5km to go as a top GC group was steadily whittling down the advantage.

Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo) jumped with about 3km to go, and that opened up the action, with Joâo Almeida (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) ramping up the speed, but there were still about 20 riders in the top contender’s group.

Lutsenko was still hanging on off the front when he hit the red kite. Vingegaard jumped and caught Lutsenko with 400m to go, and held on to finish ahead of Pogačar and Yates.

Larry Warbasse in the break

The tension was high in the race’s second and final summit finale, with all eyes on Yates and Pogačar. The Slovenian started the stage with a 43-second lead to the Ineos Grenadiers rider. Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) won here in a reduced GC group when the climb was last featured in 2019 en route to overall victory.

American rider Larry Warbasse (Ag2r-Citroën) rode into the day’s main breakaway that also included the like of Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and Lutsenko. The main bunch limited the gap to the leaders and was under control at two minutes with 30km to go.

Both the GC bunch and the breakaway group started to shrink once the riders hit the 20km climb. Riders peeled off the back as the pace picked up among the GC riders, while the lead group also evaporated against the steady ramps of the climb. De Gendt was reeled in with 11km to go, while Lutsenko was digging deep to hang off the front by about a minute with 5km to go.

Ineos Grenadiers led the chase, and hoped to put pressure on Pogačar in what was the final chance to try to rattle the UAE Emirates captain. Bora-Hansgrohe also piled on in hopes of pushing Emmanuel Buchmann into contention for the stage win.

What’s on tap

The UAE Tour continues Friday with the 165km sixth stage from Deira Island to Palm Jumeirah. The flat course will be another opportunity for the pack’s fast finishers. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) won Wednesday’s stage in what was the first major battle between the sprinters.

With two more sprint stages on tap, Thursday’s results all but put a finish on the GC battle. Riders will need to avoid crashes and echelons in the closing days.