UAE Tour: Jasper Philipsen wins stage one in thrilling sprint finish

The opening stage of the UAE Tour saw a calm day as the peloton roamed through the desert

The breakaway never had much of a chance, as will be the case throughout the whole week, nevertheless the wildcard teams made their presence felt by both placing two riders in front, Gazprom - Rusvelo with Pavel Kochetkov and Dmitry Strakhov, Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè with Luca Rastelli and Alessandro Tonelli, and Lotto Soudal's Xandres Vervloesem. The group were caught with 19 kilometers to go as the peloton surfed through the final 60 kilometers that were all done in a straight line.

It was perhaps the most simple sprint finish the peloton has ever seen with no technical features at all in the final hour of racing, all teams arrived at the finish fresh and with a tailwind it made for very high speeds.

It was a chaotic finish with no leadout taking control of the peloton, several riders entered the final sprint well positioned, BORA - hansgrohe seemed to have the leadout perfected for Sam Bennett, but in the final sprint things were very close and on the right side of the road Jasper Philipsen snatched the win in front of Sam Bennett and Elia Viviani.