Tim Merlier makes winning start to 2025 with victory on stage 1 of AlUla Tour
Cycling
Soudal - Quick-Step's European champion Tim Merlier has the sprint win on the opening stage of the 2024 AlUla Tour in a bunch finale at the Al Manshiyah Train Station, opening his 2025 season in style.
Heading into the final 30km, just four men remained from the day's break. The most notable of the attackers was Alexandre Vinokurov of the XDS Astana Development Team, son of former Olympic gold medal winning boss of the Astana team. The break's hopes of holding off the peloton were almost non existent though, already within 30 seconds of being caught. Around 10km later, the break's day on the attack was officially over, and all attentions in the peloton were turned towards preparing for the imminent bunch sprint.
With a number of top sprinters present, but nearly all having their first race day of the season, it was quite hard to predict who would have good legs in the final sprint. At around 5km to go, Arvid De Kleijn and Alexander Kristoff's hopes were sadly over in a nasty crash that also brought UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader Rafal Majka down to the deck. In the sprint for the line, Tim Merlier opened things up and managed to hold off the late charge of Juan Sebastian Molano and Maikel Zijlaard to secure the victory.
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- The simple fact that we don’t see Jonas racing any of the classics tells the difference between the two.Pedalmasher10-03-2025
- yes, the prior preparation must be rational and precise, but the races have so many dynamic variables, they are chaotic. Jonas and Tadej have different styles in responding to the situations. Tadej is flexible and very reactive on his own, more instinctive . Jonas' style is passive, static, he sticks to the previous plan and waits for instructions before modifying it, more calculated.
maria2024202410-03-2025 - LA Doper still has a foot print on this site ! Nauseating !frieders310-03-2025
- I’m guessing it is every cyclists style. as it every successful persons style. success in life is not left to random chancemij10-03-2025
- Jonas isn't robotic enough for me. Keris Vroom is still the best on this matter. He always looks at his computer and ride to the power.
KerisVroom10-03-2025 - If this piece had been published before he fell it might pass as insight.Renz10-03-2025
- I'm with you. Grand Tour GC would be much less interesting with only one of Tadej and Jonas. Right now, no one else comes close.Evan10-03-2025
- So, it is true then that Tadej wants to compete in the hell of the north. His boss is the one who's asking him to defer.KerisVroom10-03-2025
- It doesn’t help that the translation into English isn’t done by native speakers but then few native English speakers know other languages well enough to translate ;-)Mistermaumau09-03-2025
- We have more than 2.Mistermaumau09-03-2025