Another one for INEOS! Joshua Tarling beats Bissegger and Pogacar to win UAE Tour time-trial and take over race lead
CyclingTuesday, 18 February 2025 at 17:49
INEOS Grenadiers are on a roll and this Tuesday they have taken another big win. Joshua Tarling has won stage 2 of the UAE Tour with a very impressive performance in the race's sole time-trial, taking the win with a large margin over Stefan Bissegger whilst Tadej Pogacar won significant time on his competitors.
After the opening stage of the race, some gaps have appeared in the peloton and so not all riders could aim for the race lead today. The starting orders did not correspond to the GC placings interestingly, and most of the GC riders started off early so as to avoid adverse weather conditions that seemed to have affected some riders late in the morning.
The wind blew hard in the UAE and early on we had Iván Romeo setting the first strong time at 13:26, but that was then improved by none other than Tadej Pogacar, the man to beat for the overall classification who put on a strong time of 13:13, setting the benchmark in the fight for the stage win.
However it wouldn't take long for that to be lowered as Stefan Bissegger came through with a time of 13:06 to take over the lead, and only a few minutes later Joshua Tarling would go on to put on a 12:55 time, a monster performance from the Briton that would put him in the hot seat permanently and eventually confirm the stage win. The two previous riders completed the podium.
There were high expectations for the race leader Jonathan Milan who typically does good in these distances, but his poor performance did confirm the troublesome wind changes that harmed the late departers. The Lidl-Trek rider did not hold on to the race lead.
| 1 | Tarling Joshua | INEOS Grenadiers | 00:12:55 |
| 2 | Bissegger Stefan | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | + 13 |
| 3 | Pogacar Tadej | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | + 18 |
| 4 | Vine Jay | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | + 21 |
| 5 | Walscheid Max | Team Jayco-AlUla | + 24 |
| 6 | Castrillo Pablo | Movistar Team | + 27 |
| 7 | Romeo Iván | Movistar Team | + 28 |
| 8 | Bilbao Pello | Bahrain Victorious | + 39 |
| 9 | Vermeersch Florian | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | + 39 |
| 10 | Fisher-Black Finn | Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe | + 40 |
| 11 | Armirail Bruno | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | + 41 |
| 12 | Tejada Harold | XDS Astana Team | + 42 |
| 13 | Ciccone Giulio | Lidl-Trek | + 42 |
| 14 | Rodriguez Carlos | INEOS Grenadiers | + 43 |
| 15 | Kluckers Arthur | Tudor Pro Cycling Team | + 44 |
| 16 | Lutsenko Alexey | Israel-Premier Tech | + 45 |
| 18 | Lemmen Bart | Team Visma | Lease a Bike | + 46 |
| 19 | Zijlaard Maikel | Tudor Pro Cycling Team | + 46 |
| 20 | Leijnse Enzo | Team Picnic PostNL | + 46 |
| 21 | Gate Aaron | XDS Astana Team | + 47 |
| 22 | Konrad Patrick | Lidl-Trek | + 49 |
| 23 | Price-Pejtersen Johan | Alpecin-Deceuninck | + 49 |
| 24 | Durbridge Luke | Team Jayco-AlUla | + 50 |
| 25 | Hoole Daan | Lidl-Trek | + 50 |
| 26 | Gall Felix | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | + 51 |
| 27 | Zwiehoff Ben | Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe | + 51 |
| 28 | Gloag Thomas | Team Visma | Lease a Bike | + 51 |
| 29 | Steinhauser Georg | EF Education-EasyPost | + 54 |
| 30 | Van Eetvelt Lennert | Lotto | + 55 |
| 31 | Seixas Paul | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | + 55 |
| 32 | Onley Oscar | Team Picnic PostNL | + 55 |
| 33 | Currie Logan | Lotto | + 59 |
| 34 | Maciejuk Filip | Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe | + 59 |
| 35 | Leonard Michael | INEOS Grenadiers | + 01:01 |
| 36 | De Schuyteneer Steffen | Lotto | + 01:01 |
| 37 | Herregodts Rune | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | + 01:02 |
| 38 | Kepplinger Rainer | Bahrain Victorious | + 01:02 |
| 39 | Pedersen Rasmus Søjberg | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | + 01:03 |
| 40 | Storer Michael | Tudor Pro Cycling Team | + 01:06 |
| 41 | Bjerg Mikkel | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | + 01:07 |
| 42 | Carthy Hugh | EF Education-EasyPost | + 01:07 |
| 43 | Edmondson Alex | Team Picnic PostNL | + 01:09 |
| 44 | Côté Pier-André | Israel-Premier Tech | + 01:09 |
| 45 | Mackellar Alastair | EF Education-EasyPost | + 01:10 |
| 46 | Barta William | Movistar Team | + 01:12 |
| 47 | Moro Manlio | Movistar Team | + 01:13 |
| 48 | Kuypers Gerben | Intermarché-Wanty | + 01:13 |
| 49 | Milan Jonathan | Lidl-Trek | + 01:13 |
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2 Comments
So what’s the rule about playing musical chairs with the starting order, or do they just make them up as they go along in these places?
As much as I like Tadej, I'm happy he didn't win, you can't be best at everything.
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