Belgian sprinter Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step) won the first stage of the UAE Tour on Monday after a massive sprint in Liwa, marked by the fall of many riders. Around 200 meters from the finish line, around twenty riders fell, blocking a good part of the peloton behind them, arriving grouped together at the end of this first stage contested over 141 km between Madinat Zayed and Liwa.
In front, the Belgian Tim Merlier finally won in 3 h 09 min and 55 sec ahead of the Dutchman Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor) and the Italian Jakub Mareczko (Corratec-Vini Fantini). “It’s my first victory of the season, so I’m very happy,” commented the winner of the day, aged 31 and who has already won stages in the Giro and the Tour de France. “I saw Fernando (Gaviria, of the UAE team) leaving, and as I saw the finish line, I decided to go for it,” he explained.
Among the riders stranded by the fall at the end of the stage, the British veteran Mark Cavendish and the Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen. On Tuesday, the riders will set off for a 12.1 km individual time trial on the island of Al Hudayriyat, near Abu Dhabi.
