UAE Tour stage 4: Tadej Pogačar wins on Jebel Jais, takes race lead

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) took top honors Wednesday in a relentless GC contest on the first summit finish at the UAE Tour on Jebel Jais.

The race’s big overall favorites took turns to strike out on the final ascent but it was UAE Team Emirates that did much of the damage with Pogačar delivering on it to take the stage win. Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) finished second with Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) rolling across for third.

Despite an impressive ride and a big final sprint from Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), who started the day second overall, Pogačar did just enough to take over the overall race lead by two seconds over the Italian.

Stefan Bissegger, who was the race leader after yesterday’s time trial, was dropped on the final climb.

“It’s amazing. It was a hard final and the team was perfect, the teamwork was super strong. We came to the final as a super strong team and it was a fast climb and a lot of strong riders attacking, left, right and the team did a super job. They brought me to the final sprint, I did my best possible and I’m super happy,” Pogačar said.

“I’m super happy to start here with a win. You never know what will happen on the last day and you can lose time. I’m super happy to take the jersey today. Now we will focus on the two flat stages and then we will see in the final how it goes.”

And @TamauPogi crosses the finish line after a tough attacking climb, winning the Burjeel Medical City Stage! 🏁🤙🏼🏔@BurjeelMediCity @RAKTourism @VPS_Health @AbuDhabiSC @burjeelhospital @BurjeelRoyal pic.twitter.com/DrftlXaz8R

— UAE Tour Official (@uae_tour) February 23, 2022

With the first summit finish of the week looming at the end of the 181-kilometer stage, the battle for the breakaway was fairly simple with Luca Rastelli (Bardiani-CSF) and Jakob Egholm (Trek-Segafredo) going clear early on.

The duo was left to dangle out front for most of the stage with the peloton finally bringing them back with 16km remaining after building an advantage of almost eight minutes.

As the road raised up, UAE Team Emirates took over the pace-setting from EF Education-Easy Post. The home team set a blistering tempo in the early part of the climb, burning off tired riders from the back of the bunch.

A major turn by George Bennett thinned out the group, but with just under 10 kilometers to go, a sizeable number still remained part of it. UAE Team Emirates changed tactics and sent Rafał Majka off the front with about eight kilometers to go.

As soon as the Polish rider was brought back, defending champion Pogačar had a dig off the front followed by another push from Majka. After hanging on as long as he could, Bissegger was eventually dispatched with seven kilometers to the line, having worked hard for teammate Ruben Guerreiro.

🥇🎉 HE’S DONE IT! @TamauPogi wins stage 4 of the #UAETour 🇦🇪 and takes over the leader’s jersey!#UAETeamEmirates #WeAreUAE pic.twitter.com/DVhunYSi9j

— @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamEmiratesUAE) February 23, 2022

The attacks continued to ping off the front but the peloton behind maintained a strong pace up the steady ascent and it proved hard for anything to gain any serious advantage. It was like a boxing match as teams traded blows with each other, making the break and forcing the chase behind.

The relentless attacks took their toll on the bunch, and it had thinned to about 15 riders with still three kilometers to go. As the race headed under the flamme rouge, the group had grown further.

It would end up being a reduced bunch sprint to the line with Pogačar having the pace to take the win.