Tadej Pogacar soars to first win of 2025 atop Jebel Jais on stage 3 of 2025 UAE Tour

Tadej Pogacar is back! The world champion has triumphed atop the mythical Jebel Jais to take victory on stage 3 of the 2025 UAE Tour, timing his move to perfection at the end.

Five riders got themselves in the day's breakaway, but notably, only two teams were represented as VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizanè riders, were joined by a pair from Team Solution Tech - Vini Fantini. Despite the stage being all about the final climb to Jebel Jais though, the peloton didn't give the break too much leeway, keeping things close at less than two minutes. 

There was a strong win throughout the stage, but with it mostly hitting the riders as a headwind, there was never a real threat of echelons. After the breakaway's advantage dropped to around 40 seconds at one point, at 50km to go, the lead had stretched out again to over a minute and a half. The cooperation in the break has all but completely diminished though, as Bardiani and Vini Fantini riders just took it turns to try and launch attacks.

In the end, Carlos Samudio (Vini Fantini) and Federico Biagini (Bardiani) rode clear of their companions, battling for the final intermediate sprint of the day at around 35km from the finish, with the former being the man to take the maximum points. As the climbing began, there was disaster for Movistar Team's Einer Rubio, a former winner atop Jebel Jais as he needed a bike change. At the front meanwhile, the break were all swallowed by around 18km to go. 

Thanks to a massive effort, Rubio did get back in touch with the UAE Team Emirates - XRG led lead group heading into the final 10km, the question was how much effort had been taken out of the Colombian in the chase. Despite the pace set by UAE looking relatively fierce, there was still a rather large group together heading into the final 5km, with race leader Joshua Tarling of the INEOS Grenadiers still firmly among them. After Domen Novak pulled over at 4.3km to go, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team took over at the front.

Inside the final 3km, Tarling began to slip towards the back of the group. Lurking dangerously near the front though, Tadej Pogacar was looking supremely comfortable. The first big move came from Felix Gall at 1.8km to go, but the Austrian couldn't properly snap the elastic. Inside the finale kilometre, Jay Vine turned into something of a leadout man for Pogacar, before finally pulling over an allowing the Slovenian to storm to victory ahead of Oscar Onley and Gall.