Jonathan Milan doubles up on UAE Tour stage 5
After a crash ruined his chances on the opening day of the UAE Tour, Jonathan Milan has hit his stride with two wins in as many days. The Italian delivered a towering sprint to win stage 5 as his compatriot Antonio Tiberi retained the overall lead.
Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) produced another imperious sprint to win stage 5 of the UAE Tour at Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University. The Italian came home ahead of Erlend Blikra (Uno-X Mobility) and Matteo Malucelli (XDS-Astana) to claim his second successive win.
The wide roads on the run-in made for a hectic sprint finale, but Milan’s teammate Max Walscheid led the peloton into the final corner. XDS-Astana then took up the reins for Malucelli, but Milan had tucked himself onto the wheel of Ethan Vernon (NSN), and he would find space by the left-hand barrier to launch his sprint.
Once Milan hit the front in his familiar, bobbing style, the result was never in doubt, and he was a clear winner over Blikra, who made a late charge for second place.
Milan’s brother, Matteo, third on stage 4, was a faller in the final kilometre here, but the Groupama-FDJ United was able to remount and finish the stage soon afterwards.
There was never any realistic prospect of anything but a bunch sprint on stage 5 of the UAE Tour, but that didn’t dissuade Gianni Moscon (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Nickolas Zukowsky (Pinarello Q36.5) from clocking some training miles off the front of the race for much of the stage.
Dillier had already been an attacker on two stages earlier in the week, and he was among the key aggressors in the flurry of attack and counterattack in the opening kilometres. The trio clocked a rapid 47.9km in the first hour of racing, but they were never given much leeway by the peloton, where Lidl-Trek kept the buffer within two minutes.
The escapees maintained a lead of a minute into the final 20km, and Moscon and Zukowsky were the last men standing, but they were swept up with 3km to go as the pace ratcheted up still further ahead of the inevitable bunch sprint.
Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) finished safely in the peloton to retain the red jersey of race leader with an advantage of 21 seconds over Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) ahead of the decisive summit finish atop Jebel Hafeet on Saturday.
Result: UAE Tour stage 5
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