In what is an incredibly important year for sprinting in the WorldTour peloton as Mark Cavendish attempts to take a record 35th Tour de France stage win, the Manxman continues his final season before retirement at the UAE Tour.
Often billed as the unofficial ‘sprinters World Championships’, the seven-day stage race has come to provide the yardstick for the fast men to beat come July. This edition is no different with four possible chances at bunch finishes on stages 1, 4, 5 and 6.
Cavendish got his season underway with victory on the Tour Colombia battling out with Fernando Gaviria (Movistar), but the list of riders set to start in Abu Dhabi features not only the Colombian but pretty much every other top sprinter in a stacked field.
Sam Welsford (Bora-Hansgrohe), Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Dylan Groenwegen (Jayco AlUla) are all down to race and have already scored victories in 2024.
Welsford and Merlier look the men to beat after the Aussie dominated the Tour Down under sprints and the Belgian got off to a flying start with two victories at the AlUla Tour. Merlier was the best sprinter in the UAE last year with two victories.
They will face stiff competition from Cavendish and Groenewegen, while Kooij is one-from-one after winning the Clasica de Almeria. A Giro d’Italia debut in May is the focal point of his season and the Dutch sprinter has become one of the most consistent fast finishers in the bunch with 13 wins in 2023.
But the top-quality start list isn’t completed yet as Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious), Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers), Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) and Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) will also be trying to get their lead-out trains in order.
Stages four, five and six offer obvious chances for a bunch sprint should there be no crosswind action, but echelons will be favoured by the likes of Cavendish, Merlier and Bauhaus - they all made the crosswind-split move on stage 1 of the 2023 race.
With a 90-degree corner and sweeping right-hand bend characterising the sprint finales on stages four and six, expect the lead-out skills of Danny van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe), Michael Mørkov (Astana Qazaqstan), Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Luka Mezgec (Jayco AlUla) to be just as closely monitored. Such a high quantity and quality of sprinters means the piloting work before will be just as important as the finishing job.
The one problem for Cavendish and Co. is that the statistical and probable number one sprinter in the world from last year - Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won’t be present with the more than capable Kaden Groves taking Alpecin’s sprint spot as the Belgian takes on Opening Weekend.
Cavendish was robbed of knowing whether he could hold off the Belgian on stage 7 of last year’s Tour due to mechanical issues before his unfortunate crash just a day later forced him to postpone retirement and come back for one more season.
He’s done it before, of course, at both the Tour and in the UAE on stage 2 of the 2022 edition, but Philipsen was only bested in July by Mads Pedersen on a gruelling uphill drag to the line in Limoges and Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe) on the final stage into Paris. That battle will have to wait until summer.
The general classification of the UAE Tour, meanwhile, looks likely to be decided on Jebel Hafeet, and with the startlist as its currently billed, Adam Yates looks to be the main to beat in the absence of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep).
With that in mind, all eyes will be on the sprinters.
