Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Dstny) won the UAE Tour in dramatic circumstances after winning the final summit finish to Jebel Hafeet with a searing late attack. The Belgian powered clear with 1.7km remaining to claim stage victory by 22 seconds from Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) and Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R).
That gap and the stage winner’s time bonus was enough to hand him the overall title, two seconds clear of O’Connor, while Bilbao claimed the third step of the podium.
UAE Team Emirates had looked in command of the race beforehand, with Jay Vine in the red jersey and Brandon McNulty lying third overall, but both riders were surprisingly distanced on the lower slopes of the tough final climb.
That made O’Connor the de facto race leader in the final kilometres, and the Australian looked to control the race by setting his Decathlon-AG2R team to work.
The race ignited in the final four kilometres, with Bilbao making several attempts to forge clear and O’Connor repeatedly forced to stitch the front group back together.
The decisive move, however, was triggered by another Australian. When Michael Storer (Tudor) accelerated with 2km to go, the Belgian youngsters Van Eetvelt and Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal-QuickStep) were immediately on his wheel.
300m later, Van Eetvelt sensed his opportunity. The 22-year-old produced a towering acceleration that saw him rip clear of Van Wilder and Storer, and he proceeded to put daylight into O’Connor, Bilbao et al as he powered to stage victory.
Van Eetvelt was careful to sprint through the finish line before celebrating his stage victory, and that detail helped to ensure he took overall victory just two seconds clear of O’Connor.
“Unbelievable, I cannot believe it,” Van Eetvelt said. “This morning everybody was telling me to go for everything, that I could win GC too, but I said, guys, we have to stay realistic. I’m still far behind a lot of world’s best guys like Jay Vine. But this was the plan, this is what I had in my head.”
A native of Binkom, near Leuven, Van Eetvelt turned professional in 2023 and he made his Grand Tour debut at last year’s Vuelta a España, placing 32nd overall. Victory at last month’s Trofeo Serra Tramuntana ahead of Aleksandr Vlasov was an indication of his early-season form, and he will hope his first WorldTour successes are an augury of things to come.
“I hope so,” he said. “This winter I already noticed that I made big improvements, I thought maybe my power meter was broken or something. But fuck, I cannot be more happy now.”
How it unfolded
As per tradition, the summit finish at Jebel Hafeet was preceded by a long, flat run through the desert, though the morning provided more frissons than the general classification contenders would have anticipated.
The early break of Silvan Dillier, Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mark Stewart (Corratec-Vini Fantini) established a maximum lead of six minutes, but behind them, a bike race was breaking out amid the crosswinds that buffeted the peloton.
The bunch splintered into shards with 60km remaining, when Bilbao and Van Wilder were among the men caught behind, while Decathlon-AG2R and UAE Team Emirates were heavily represented at the front.
At that point, the battle for general classification looked set to boil down to a contest between O’Connor and the UAE pairing of Vine and McNulty, but the race took on a different guise once the road began to climb towards Jebel Hafeet.
By then, the break’s lead had begun to evaporate, though Buchmann, the last man standing, held a buffer of one minute over the bunch for the first half of the ascent. With 9km to race, however, came the first surprise when McNulty was jettisoned out the back of the reduced peloton.
Shortly afterwards, the red jersey himself began to drift towards the rear of the group of favourites, and Jay Vine, so impressive earlier in the week, was distanced with 7km still to race.
That placed the burden of responsibility on O’Connor and his Decathlon-AG2R team, and the Australian, pedalling fluidly, looked well capable of managing the situation. Ultimately, however, the flurry of attacks near the summit – not to mention Van Eetvelt’s obvious strength – made the situation a complicated one.
Bilbao sparked the attacking with a rasping effort with 4.4km to go, with O’Connor careful to follow, and the Basque repeated his effort half a kilometre later. O’Connor was again quick to respond, but he no longer had any teammates on hand to help police an increasingly unruly front group.
Carlos Verona (Lidl-Trek) and Max Poole (DSM) also got in on the attacking after Buchmann was swept up, while Bilbao made another couple of nudges, with O’Connor always ready to mark his moves.
Nobody, however, could gain much traction on their effort until Storer struck out with 2km to go, bringing Van Eetvelt and Van Wilder with him. Shortly afterwards, Van Eetvelt sensed his opportunity and zoomed clear.
Behind, Bilbao, O’Connor, Storer, Verona and Attila Valter (Visma-Lease A Bike) gave chase, but the momentum was with Van Eetvelt, who claimed an emphatic victory.
“Because of the wind it wasn’t as hard on the climb as I had hoped and it was still a pretty big group, even if it wasn’t easy either,” Van Eetvelt said. “In the end, I just said, let’s go, all or nothing. On Wednesday, I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t give my all, that I waited too long. Today I just thought, let’s go.”
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