Tadej Pogacar breakaway, 2 mass crashes and a victory for Tim Merlier at UAE Tour stage 5
Cycling
Stage 5 of the UAE Tour delivered a lot of action with an unusual Tadej Pogacar breakaway on a pan-flat day, but the sprinters ended up fighting for glory on the day and it was none other than Tim Merlier who won in a finale that has seen a lot of drama.
The stage started out just about as crazy as one could expect, as after a breakaway of seven riders formed itself featuring Intermarché's Kobe Goossens, two riders from the Bardiani team and a whole four from the Vini Fantini team. It was a wild group of riders and they were joined by four more including none other than race leader Tadej Pogacar who set himself up for mission impossible. Pogacar, teammate Domen Novak, defending champion Lennert van Eetvelt and INEOS' Victor Langellotti attacked from the peloton and bridged across to the breakaway, forming a group of 11 riders.
It was an amusing move which lit up the action on the day, but the peloton chased hard right from the gun and never allowed the gap to grow over two minutes. In total, both Pogacar and van Eetvelt collected three seconds in bonifications over the two intermediate sprints, but the pan-flat profile and many teams commiting to a chase meant that the effort wouldn't be rewarding the attackers further.
The breakaway was then actually caught with a whole 39 kilometers to go. Racing calmed down then, but the peloton accelerated once again towards the final and a crash just outside the final 3 kilometers proved to be a disaster for some as the likes of Pablo Castrillo, Felix Gall, Carlos Rodríguez and Paul Seixas hit the deck at high speed and have lost time as a consequence.
Another crash happened in the final corner at high speed, taking out even more men from contention. Luka Mezgec launched an early sprint and actually threatened the fast men... Lidl-Trek managed to get a perfect leadout for Jonathan Milan but this time around Tim Merlier managed to time his move perfectly, and the European Champion took the triumph he had been looking for. Milan was third as Astana sprinter Matteo Malucelli sprinted to second on the day. Merlier himself also crashed after the finish line.
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- Why do Ineos want him.? He cannot challenge the big four and they already have a ton of strong domestiquesabstractengineer04-04-2025
- As Wout said on Srava today "Things don't always go your way... but a flat white and peanut butter brownie can make up for a lot" Puts it in perspective!VgnRider04-04-2025
- Watch out Urska, I think he’s taken a liking to MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- Totally!Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- It will be interesting to see how he goes on the cobbles, so far he's looking very strong.awp04-04-2025
- if there is an actual weakness in wout even when completely healthy, it’s that he’s in his head too often. this has been pointed out many times by much more acute observers of cycling than ME, certainly. it may be that he’s been like this since he was a little kid. we are who we are. or that he was shaped by having faced van der poel SOOO many times. mvdp has zero second thoughts. he wastes no time at all on doubt. that has, in the past, led him to do some pretty insane things and make mistakes that wout would never have committed. but it also makes him a killer. you can see wout’s split seconds of doubt and hesitation everywhere in their head to head battles. those hesitations spill over into other races at times like dwars, when doubt creeps in. i believe that currently he is still coming back from physical problems due to injuries, but even when he’s full strength the mental game is an area of potential concern, AND potential improvement.OCexile03-04-2025
- Not only the public, just about every analyst and commentator had been piling it on. Under the circumstances I’d even say he’s showing real character. Not sure likeable Tadej would manage as well during a longer rough patch.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Took a while but we finally have a more nuanced analysis.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- If I remember right, it was those same hungry journalists selling us a different story less than a year ago about the bleak future of Dutch (men’s) cycling with no possible successor for MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Good, hopefully Jonas goes also so we get a nice duelvappaxbipmv03-04-2025