PREVIEW | UAE Tour 2025 - Tadej Pogacar starts his season and is the ultimate favourite for GC win
Cycling
From February 17th to 23rd, the UAE Tour 2025 will take place. It is the second World Tour stage-race of the year and will feature plenty of stars in the field of the sprinters and also climbers - headlined by Tadej Pogacar. We preview the race ahead.
The first stage of the race is a full-on ride through the desert, much of the stage in a literal straight line, where strong winds could create absolute chaos. The finale however will be slightly uphill in Liwa, giving way to an exciting first sprint for the race lead.
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Stage 2 will be an important day for the overall classification, as the riders one-by-one will race through the 12 kilometers of the Hudayriat Island time-trial (exactly the same as previous years). This will create differences between the GC riders before the riders reach the mountains.
Stage 3 of the race is going to be an important day, as the climbers will come to the front. The ascent to Jebel Jais never creates big differences, but we will see which climbers will have the legs to fight for the overall win and those who won't. The final climb is around 20 kilometers long, but on a very wide, exposed road where the gradients rarely go above 6%.
Stage 4 is another day that doesnn't have many special features, it's a pan-flat days in a more urban environment where the sprinters will have a shot at victory.
Stage 5 will be similar to the previous day, with no difficulties to point and another sprinter certain at the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, the most technical finale of the race.
Stage 6 will be taking place in Abu Dhabi, where the 2016 World Championships were hosted. The stage, designed once again for the sprinters, will be very calm certainly but the finale ultra-fast. The world's fastest riders will be taking glory once again.
The race ends with it's queen stage. A fully-flat day, with the toughest climb of the race matching the finish line. Jebel Hafeet is 10.9 kilometers long at 6.7%, not a brutal climb but it's first two thirds present very steep sections and this is a climb where big differences are usually made.
The Favourites
Tadej Pogacar - There's little doubt there that this is the man to beat. The only stage-race Pogacar will do this spring, but he does not have his main rivals present so if he can avoid crashes or splits he will likely have a comfortable week, with two likely wins besides the GC. Even though UAE does not have a very strong lineup, and will support Molano in the sprints, it doesn't really make much of a difference because if Pogacar is at his 2024 level I think very few will even be thinking of following his attacks.
A lot can happen throughout the week, with four bunch sprints there is the risk of crashes happening, whilst in the UAE the strong winds can make a difference every single day. Defending champion Lennert van Eetvelt is a terrific climber who really broke through last year, and it will be interesting to see if his explosive capabilities can land him on the final podium once again. I rate Giulio Ciccone and Carlos Rodríguez perhaps as the other big contenders for the final podium, INEOS will want a good result here and have their big leader present whilst Ciccone should be well protected by a powerful Lidl-Trek and is the right kind of climber for such stages.
In the past Pello Bilbao has performed quite well here and he should also be in this fight, being a rider who can also chase bonifications often - Rainer Kepplinger provides another card for Bahrain-Victorious. Movistar bring a really good lineup with Tour Down Under runner-up Javier Romo who actually promises quite a lot; Pablo Castrillo who looked solid in Valencia and Einer Rubio who won at Jebel Jais last year.
The other teams with more than one card are Visma with Bart Lemmen and Thomas Gloag; Israel with Alexey Lutsenko, Jan Hirt and Matthew Riccitello; Decathlon with Felix Gall and who knows, Paul Seixas can also do something interesting; and BORA who are debuting Giulio Pellizzari in a stage-race but also giving an opportunity to Finn Fisher-Black who is a wildcard for such long climbs.
Michael Storer comes in leading Tudor for the mountains, Picnic have Oscar Onley, Astana have Harold Tejada and Jayco have Chris Harper - many of these being riders who also rode the Tour Down Under and are putting a lot of focus into this early-season block.
The Sprinters
The sprinter battles are really the highlight of this race, it's not by chance that it's often termed the 'sprinters' world championships'. There will be four pan-flat stages at World Tour level, something only the Grand Tours usually offer in the same amount throughout the season. With no major calendar clashes, most of the world's fastest are present, with their leadouts, and some teams have as many as six or even the whole seven riders thinking about these stages.
We will have sprint fights between Jasper Philipsen, Tim Merlier and Jonathan Milan - often termed the three strongest and most consistent sprinters throughout the year - and they will each have their leadouts assembled well. Furthermore we've got Sam Welsford who has just won several stages at the Tour Down Under; Olav Kooij who comfortably won both sprints at the Tour of Oman... Arvid de Kleijn, Dylan Groenewegen, Gerben Thijssen, Matteo Malucelli, Juan Sebastián Molano, Fernando Gaviria and Picnic PostNL duo Fabio Jakobsen and Tobias Lund Andresen.
In the time-trial there is the small possibility that Pogacar won't come out with the win, here Joshua Tarling will be a strong contender and a perfect specialist for this kind of effort. Stefan Bissegger will also be an interesting rider to watch on this day - with Pogacar's teammate Mikkel Bjerg being the other big contender.
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Prediction UAE Tour 2025 overall classification:
*** Tadej Pogacar
** Lennert van Eetvelt, Giulio Ciccone, Carlos Rodríguez
* Felix Gall, Michael Storer, Pello Bilbao, Alexey Lutsenko, Matthew Riccitello, Chris Harper, Giulio Pellizzari, Oscar Onley, Bart Lemmen, Einer Rubio, Pablo Castrillo, Javier Romo
Pick: Tadej Pogacar
Original: Rúben Silva
The UAE Tour is now just days away, we sat down with some of the riders taking part to get their thoughts 💭 #UAETour @AbuDhabiSC@ihc__official@Mubadala@NakheelOfficial@aldar pic.twitter.com/m0S4ki4ob8
— UAE Tour Official (@uae_tour) February 13, 2025
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- i remember when not too long ago mathieu was regarded as a real tactical knucklehead. i’m not sure that was ever quite accurate, but it’s certainly the case that over the years he has become a real master tactician. in the biggest races, van der poel rarely makes choices that don’t fully optimize every specific advantage he has.OCexile23-03-2025
- Whatever the result, I believe the strategy by UAE to launch Pogacar was absolutely the right one. Unfortunately, they just were not able to execute it the way they must have planned, being all over the place at the start of the Cipressa.Cooldude23-03-2025
- They are without doubt not just the best two classics riders of this generation, but amongst the best of all time. MvdP is more suited to MSR and PR (which Pog has yet to race), while Pog is now almost untouchable at LBL and Lombardia. RVV is the only one where both basically have an equal chance to win.Cooldude23-03-2025
- bravissima!
maria2024202423-03-2025 - According to Tadej's Strava upload, he went up the Cipressa at an average speed of 37.6kph. Rocket ship! He did the 5.63km verified 'Cipressa' Strava segment in 8:59 minutes, which has a 4.3% average grade and total elevation gain of 229m. Naturally, he got the Strava KOM.Pogboom23-03-2025
- In Track and Field, there's Usain Bolt in the sprints and Kenya's Kipchoge in the marathon. Though Bolt can quite easily beat Kipchoge in the 100m dash, he probably won't even finish a marathon. Tadej won't beat Mathieu in a sprint, yet he wins the TDF while MVDP languishes in 50th place. Both are great champions in their respective fields, but my admiration goes to Tadej for trying.FredMan23-03-2025
- They went into the race as co-leaders!frieders323-03-2025
- He can win that sprint if he plays it right but leaving tha gap was ridiculous ! A spring after 6+ hours isn't a guarantee for MVDPfrieders323-03-2025
- The climbs are steeper on Flanders giving Pogi the advanatge as we saw before when he won!frieders323-03-2025
- VDP is best in a short sprint, so Pog was purposely leaving a gap in hopes that VDP wouldn't have enough to sprint for 310 meters at the end of 300 KM. Kwiatkowski did the same thing to Sagan at that same point and won because of it.acem8223-03-2025