Whilst most of the attention is on the finale of the stage, where Mark Cavendish took the sprint win at the UAE Tour's second stage, throughout most of the day Gazprom - Rusvelo have single handedly created a breakaway with a very unusual attack.
The UAE Tour is not a race where Pro Teams are particularly attracted to due to the distance and costs of travel from Europe but also the lack of any stage where breakaways can succeed, alongside the lack of a KOM classification that they can target. Hence, only three Pro Teams were invited which were Alpecin - Fenix who are automatically invited to all World Tour races, Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè and Gazprom - Rusvelo. The latter was the only team interested in having riders in the breakaway today, and in an highly unusual race situation, three riders from the same team lead the race throughout most of the day.
Having their wildcard given to this World Tour race the Russian team has done it's best to get their sponsorship exposure, having two riders in the breakaway opening day, and today once again having Pavel Kochetkov and Dmitry Strakhov on the attack, this time also with Michael Kukrle. The trio attacked in the beginning of the stage and survived until 36 kilometers to go.
Strakhov has also extended his lead in the Intermediate Sprint jersey, which he should be able to keep until the last day barring any incident.
Look at this trio: Dmitry Strakhov, Pavel Kochetkov and Michael Kukrle escaped from the peloton and are rocking the royal blue, white and black jerseys in the breakaway during the second stage of @uae_tour 😎 ⠀ 📷: @sprintcycling #RockTheRoyalBlueJersey #GazpromRusVelo #UAETour
