UAE Tour stage 6: Tim Merlier makes it three with sprint win in Abu Dhabi

After almost being boxed in in the final few hundred metres, Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) came from a difficult position to sprint to his third victory of the week at the UAE Tour, asserting his dominance in a strong sprint field.

After ceding to Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) on stage 5, Merlier was back on top on stage 6, showing his unbeatable turn of speed to beat Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling), who has picked up a string of second places this week. Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) took third.

Race leader Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) finished safely in the bunch and will take 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.”

The final sprint day of the UAE Tour delivered the expected sprint, with a fairly calm run-in as teams took it slightly easier on the approach to the finish.

It was a fairly uneventful day on the dead flat roads outside of Abu Dhabi, with the day's five-man breakaway never much more than a minute ahead, and brought back with ease before the finale.

Last-chance saloon for the sprinters, but Merlier denies his rivals

The final sprint day of the UAE Tour got underway without one of its star sprinters, as Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) did not take to the start of stage 6. The pan-flat day started and finished in Abu Dhabi, taking in 138km before the expected bunch sprint.

The first part of the stage was a familiar story, with a very early battle for the breakaway. The process of getting that group established took a little longer than on the previous days, but it still didn’t take long before five riders were up the road. The riders in the lead were Jonas Rickaert, Henri Uhlig (both Alpecin-Deceuninck), Eddy Finé (Cofidis), Marco Murgano (Corratec-Vini Fantini) and Juan Pedro López (Lidl-Trek) and they were given a conservative gap of just over a minute.

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 metres, 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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