'The perfect scenario' - Evenepoel strikes back at UAE Tour as mountains loom

It had to be him. Remco Evenepoel has been in scintillating form in the opening weeks of his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe career, and there was no surprise when the sequence continued on stage 2 of the UAE Tour.

The flat 12.2km time trial lent itself to Evenepoel’s gifts as a rouleur and he duly powered to his sixth win of the new season, scorching around the course at an average speed of 56.092kph. 

“It was pretty quick. The course was pretty flat, not super technical so it was the perfect course to try to ride that fast. I’m very happy to have done it today,” said Evenepoel.

“We won the team time trial in 2023, and I was twice second on uphill finishes, so it’s a very good feeling to take my first individual stage victory in the UAE Tour.”

Evenepoel won the day by six seconds from a spirited Josh Tarling (Ineos), but the battle for stage honours was only a part of the story. This UAE Tour has been billed by most as a straight duel between Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and the Mexican claimed the first round when he snatched a surprise victory on stage 1 with a devastating acceleration on the uphill finishing straight.

That put Del Toro into the red jersey and perhaps also at a slight disadvantage for Tuesday’s time trial. As race leader, he was compelled to be the last man down the start ramp. Evenepoel, by contrast, had the freedom to choose his own start time. Like most of the GC contenders, he opted to set out early in the afternoon on account of the predicted wind conditions.

Del Toro had to settle for 27th on the stage, 42 seconds down on Evenepoel, though it could have been worse, given that he was already more than half a minute down at the midway point. In the closing kilometres, Del Toro limited the damage, and he finished within 10 seconds of podium contenders Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious).

“I think he did the max,” Evenepoel said of Del Toro. “Of course, we knew it was going to be a bit better to start early, but in the end, he won yesterday and I won today. We both already have one stage win in our pockets. Nobody has any regrets and I think from now on it’s going to be an open GC battle.”

Evenepoel moves into the red jersey with a lead of six seconds on Tarling. More pertinently, he will tackle the stage 3 summit finish to Jebel Mobrah with a buffer of 32 seconds on Del Toro. The stiff climb is a new addition to the UAE Tour, and the final 7km have an average gradient of almost 12%. Evenepoel admitted that he was glad he could ride on the defensive on such an ascent.

“For sure, especially with the very hard climbs, it’s a bit more comfortable to defend it than to have to act,” he said. “I think this is a perfect situation for us, a perfect scenario, and now we have to try to defend it until Sunday.”