UAE’s Costa makes splash as Abu Dhabi Tour champion
abu dhabi —Rui Alberto Costa of UAE Team Emirates won the 2017 Abu Dhabi Tour as he took the overall Red Jersey in the general classification and Caleb Ewan of Team Orica Scott exploded in the final flourish of the bunch sprint to claim the 26-lap stage 4 raced entirely at the rain-soaked Yas Marina Circuit on Sunday night.
It was pouring and nobody could see the tears but emotions were high at the UAE Team Emirates dugout. Ilnur Zakarin of Team Katusha Alpecin was second and Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb was third in the overall standings.
Costa said he was happy to be the overall race leader. “This is for everyone. The course was very complicated and difficult especially with the rain. I’m very relieved to win this race for our sponsors and I would like to thank our management.”
For stage winner Ewan, it was a case of once bitten, twice shy for the Australian as he waited to cross the finish line to celebrate his win. The sprinter had a mixed Tour as he crashed in the first stage and almost won the second but celebrated too soon to see Marcel Kittel pass him to win at Nation Towers.
But no such mistakes on the night as Ewan was lead-out by teammate Roger Kluge and the sprinter crossed the finishing line with an extremely low position.
“It was a very tough race and I am relieved to win this stage,” Ewan said after the in 3:03:36 race. “I’m happy to repay my team with a win. They did a great job, we started working early and we knew on this course which was the important corners.
They controlled the race from 15km out and no one really came past us from that moment on. If you really want to be on top you need to beat Kittel, Cavendish and Greipel and for me beating them all here... I’m over the moon with that.”
Mark Cavendish of Team Dimension Data was second and Andre Greipel of Team Lotto Soudal was third. Tour ambassador Cavendish also took the overall Green Jersey with points.
Despite the rainy 143-km Yas Island stage, the peloton of 153 cyclists didn’t just get wet as they rode at an average race speed of 46.5 km/h in the only stage held under floodlights. As the Formula 1 circuit got drenched, the riders were up for the challenge following the sweeping bends with utmost confidence and aggression. The final lap saw riders test the 60-km/h mark.
At the start, there was a breakaway of six riders who eyed the three intermediate sprints – Patrick Konrad of Bora-Hansgrohe, BMC Racing Team’s Dylan Teuns, Kirill Sveshnikov of Gazprom – Rusvelo, Rafael Valls of Lotto Soudal, Movistar Team’s Alex Dowsett and Jorge Arcas.
And it was Patrick Konrad who bagged the Black Jersey by claiming the first and second intermediate sprints. He later dropped back to join the main peloton. The top sprinters, however, soon caught the breakaway of Dowsett and Teuns, who had put a feisty resistance. Quick Step Floors’ Julian Alaphilippe took the final intermediate sprints with just five laps away from finish. Alaphilippe also landed the White Jersey.
A determined bunch of the UAE Team Emirates started the race as leaders for few laps. Positions did keep changing in due course Quick Step Floors and Team Cavendish did made searing moves. But the local team was back in front with some 25 laps to go. The local team was goaded by the spare crowd all throughout.
And the final 250m on straight saw flat all go flat out and Ewan came out as the best after 26 laps of five-and-a-half kilometres.
The downpour, however, did make life difficult for riders as Tanel Kangert of Team Astana found out in in the second lap of the race when he suffered a puncture.