The EF Education-EasyPost rider set off today as one of the main favourites for the time-trial at the UAE Tour however few would've expected him to take the stage win since the competition included an in-form Filippo Ganna. However, he has pulled one out of the bad to become the race's second leader, after Jasper Philipsen.
“It’s nice in the end that you really win, that you made it, because you know in a time trial, it is always hard to say how good the others are. Somebody could have the best day of his life, so you never know till the end. But I knew when I was at the finish line with my time, I knew I was going really good," Bissegger said in a post-race interview.
After departing Bissegger had the time of Mikkel Bjerg to beat, one of the main favourites for the stage. In the space of only 9 kilometers, where there was an half with strong tailwind and another with strong headwind, Bissegger put in 24 seconds on the time of the Danish time-trialist. His time could only be possibly be matched by Filippo Ganna who had taken two wins already this season but the Italian could not set the same pace and was left to a runner-up spot.
It was a less than ideal winter for Bissegger as he had to combined an injury recover with his early season preparation, however the work has been done properly and the Swiss entered the UAE Tour in flying form: “I was looking forward to this time-trial for a long time. I had kind of a rough winter as well with my broken scaphoid, it took a long time before this was fixed. But now I am really happy that I made it."
Now heading into stage four Bissegger will have a lead to defend on the slopes of Jebel Jais. It isn't expected that he'll resist to the likes of Tadej Pogacar, Adam Yates and Aleksandr Vlasov, however it will nevertheless be a special day for the 23-year old.
💥💥💥 Boom! What a performance from Stefan Bissegger at the UAE Tour today. His time of 9:43 on the 9KM time-trial course proved to be untouchable. For those of you doing the math at home, that’s a blistering 55.5 km/hr. A huge congratulations to Bissegger for his win.
