"Essentially, as long as I keep McNulty's wheel right in front of mine, I should win the overall" - Jay Vine ready for UAE Tour's ultimate test

With just one stage left at the 2024 UAE Tour, things look good for race leader Jay Vine. It's not quite race over just yet though as a summit of the mythical Jabel Hafeet lies in wait.

On the prior summit finish of the race, rather than Vine, it was Ben O'Connor who took the win. "Being in the jersey this time, I'm going to be responding to the people that I have to respond to now," Vine says confidently prior to the start of stage 7 however. "Essentially, as long as I keep Brandon McNulty's wheel right in front of mine, I should win the overall."

With just 11 seconds separating Vine from O'Connor in the race for overall victory, with McNulty a worthy plan-B for UAE Team Emirates at 13 seconds down, it's still all to play for on the slopes of the Jabel Hafeet. "It's a big day tomorrow, I'm probably predicting about 4,000 calories, maybe a bit more, so you have to be fuelling today for tomorrow's effort. That involves fuelling even from this morning, then fuelling on the bike and then into this evening," Vine said post-stage 6. "I will probably go with something plain to be honest with some rice, and some simple proteins."

"If you look at previous years it's really up to the people that want to take time to make the race hard. The likes of Decathlon have a bunch of climbers that they can use up from the lower slopes, as well as Quick-Step, so it shouldn't be all up to us," Vine concludes.