Jonathan Milan thunders to victory on UAE Tour stage 4

Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) produced a thunderous sprint to win stage 4 of the UAE Tour in Fujairah ahead of Ethan Vernon (NSN) and his younger brother Matteo Milan (Groupama-FDJ United).

Milan missed out on the chance to contest victory on stage 1 when he was a faller beneath the flamme rouge, but the Italian recovered sufficiently to stay in the race and he was full value for his victory here.

Four riders from the day’s early break lingered out in front deep into the final kilometre, but Stefan De Bod’s late effort wasn’t enough to stave off the peloton, which was bearing down upon them.

Milan’s Lidl-Trek team had performed the bulk of the work through the day, but in the finishing straight, he came off the wheel of Ben Swift (Ineos) before unleashing his winning sprint. 

The undulating terrain offered escapees a fighting chance of holding off the peloton, and there was a flurry of early attacks before the break of the day formed, with Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Stefan De Bod (Modern Adventure), Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar), Patrick Gamper (Jayco-AlUla) and James Knox (Picnic-PostNL) eventually forging clear.

That quintet would spend the bulk of the day off the front, while Ineos and Lidl-Trek controlled affairs behind. Milesi, De Bod, Gamper and Steinhauser put up fierce resistance, but they would be cruelly reeled in within sight of the line.

Fabio Jakobsen (Picnic-PostNL), Ethan Hayter (Soudal-QuickStep) and the Decathlon CMA GGM duo of Robbe Ghys and Daan Hoole were the fallers in a crash with 30km to go that saw Ghys forced to abandon the race.

Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) finished safely in the peloton to retain the red jersey of race leader with a buffer of 21 seconds on Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and 1:00 on Harald Tejada (XDS-Astana).

The sprinters should have another opportunity to contest the honours on stage 5 before the second and final summit finish of the race at Jebel Hafeet on Saturday.