EWAN PAYS PRICE FOR CELEBRATING EARLY BEFORE CROSSING THE LINE
o disc-brakes, no problem. Marcel Kittel of Quick-Step Floors showed why he is the No. 1 sprinter in the world as he beat Caleb Ewan of Orica-Scott and Mark Cavendish of Team Dimension Data at the tape to win stage two of the Abu Dhabi Tour yesterday.
The win, however, only came after Ewan paid the price for committing the cardinal sin of celebrating early before crossing the line.
Cavendish, with his thirdplace finish, continues to don the red jersey for leading the general classification by four seconds over Kittel going into the Jebel Hafeet mountain stage 3 today. Andre Greipel of Lotto Soudal is third — eight seconds behind.
“I’m happy that I believed in my chances till the last minute and didn’t give up. To come from the back with the headwind gave some advantage to sit and serve from wheel-towheel and save some energy and pick up speed and that resulted in the victory,” said a jubilant Kittel, who also had a front tyre puncture with 31km to go when the Peloton had reached Saadiyat Island.
Back of the pack
The German fell to the back of the chasing pack and needed the support of three of his teammates to get back into the peloton.
“I didn’t take time to change my wheel and when I looked at the wind, I knew it (puncture) won’t hurt me much. Once the change of tyre happened quickly, I was fast back in the peloton,” said Kittel — adding that Ewan was beaten on the line because he didn’t sprint till the end.
“Yes of course, Caleb’s mistake did gave me the extra centimetres to make the difference to go till the end. It happens if you don’t push till the end. It is one of the mistakes that every sprinter does and it will never happen again,” said Kittel, Abu Dhabi Tour 2017: stage two – result 1) Marcel Kittel (GER) – QuickStep Floors – 3.28.11hrs 2) Caleb Ewan (AUS) – Orica-Scott – ST 3) Mark Cavendish (GBR) – Dimension Data 4) Matteo Pelucchi (ITA) – Borahansgrohe 5) Phil Bauhaus (GER) – Team Sunweb 6) Elia Viviani (ITA) – Team Sky 7) Andrea Guardini (ITA) – UAE Team Emirates 8) Eduard Michael Grosu (ROM) – Nippo-Vini Fantini 9) Andre Greipel (GER) – Lotto-Soudal 10) Alexander Porsev (RUS) – GazpromRusVelo
General classification 1) Mark Cavendish (GBR) – Dimension Data – 8.05.03hrs 2) Marcel Kittel (GER) – QuickStep Floors +4 3) Andre Greipel (GER) – Lotto-Soudal +8 4) Marco Canola (ITA) – Nippo-Vini Fantini – ST 5) Caleb Ewan (AUS) – Orica-Scott 6) Manuele Mori (ITA) – UAE Team Emirates 7) Niccolo Bonifazio (ITA) – BahrainMerida +10 8) Fabio Calabria (AUS) – Novo Nordisk +11 9) Mirco Maestri (ITA) – Bardiani-CSF +12 10) Kazushige Kuboki (JAP) – Nippo-Vini Fantini – ST Stage 3 - Al Maryah Island Stage: Al Ain Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium to Jebel Hafeet The third stage comprises both urban surroundings and mountains. The first part, inside Al Ain city, is all on wide roads with roundabouts and speed humps and is followed by a second part in the desert along wide and predominantly straight roads. At 15km to go, the route starts to rise slightly towards the final ascent, culminating in an uphill finish at an altitude of 1,025m, following an 11km climb with slopes with an 11 per cent gradient. The final climb is on wide-ranging bends on a three-lane roadway. The gradient is mostly around 8-9 per cent with a peak of 11 per cent at 3km to go. There are short descents in the last kilometres before the final ramp with a straight finish on asphalt.
who missed out on the sprint in stage one following a crash, a kilometre from the finish.
“The decision to not use the bike with disc brakes was only out of respect for my colleagues and the win was not to prove a point or something,” said Kittel.
“There was a big discussion if Owain Doull’s shoe was sliced because of my disc brake or from the barrier and I didn’t want to put oil into that fire. I didn’t want to create any irritation.
“But I’m still convinced that the disc brake technology has a future in the sport. The topic didn’t irritate me at all and my priority was to stick with my colleague and focus on the race,” revealed Kittel. Cavendish was of the view that the stage belonged to Ewan and had it not been for his “blockhead”, he would have been the winner.
The blunder
“Today, you know honestly between Caleb, Marcel and myself, clearly Caleb was the strongest. I really couldn’t match him and I knew when we turned right to go through, I was too far forward and it was going to be a hard sprint. Had it not been for Caleb’s blockhead, Marcel wouldn’t have gone in front. It will be hard on Caleb,” said Cavendish, who said that the wind was hard but his team paced him well. Ewan felt it was totally embarrassing to lose the race in the end with such an error.
“It is embarrassing more than anything as I will have to do some explanation to my teammates — they gave me a perfect lead out and we took it to the end and obviously it is my stuff that cost us the race,” said the dejected rider.