Race Report: Dylan Groenewegen starts season celebrating in Dubai Tour
Feb 06 2018 08:10 pm CET
Photo of Dylan Groenewegen by LottoNL-Jumbo
LottoNL-Jumbo's Dylan Groenewegen has won the first stage of the Dubai Tour. The Dutchman crossed the finish line ahead of Magnus Cort Nielsen and Elia Viviani.
The riders went through a course of 167 kilometres on the first day of the race. The stage started with an escape of five riders including Daniel Teklehaimanot (Cofidis), Nathan Van Hooydonck (BMC) and Andrew Fenn (Aqua Blue Sport).
The riders got an advantage of more than five minutes over the peloton, but the pack managed to catch them in time to sentence the stage to a final sprint. There was a lot of movement in the bunch and at eight kilometres to go there was a fall involving several cyclists (mainly from Astana and Bahrain-Merida), but the main men of the day remained unscathed.
Quick-Step Floors set a high pace during the last kilometres with the objective of putting Viviani in a good position but the LottoNL-Jumbo sprint train seemed to do a better job, leaving Groenewegen in a perfect position to take the sprint. For a moment it looked as if Cort Nielsen (Astana) was going to be stronger, but the Dutchman was the one celebrating at the end.
Viviani crossed the finish line in third position, Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) in fourth, and Cofidis' Nacer Bouhanni was fifth. One of the main candidates to take the victory, Marcel Kittel, had mechanical problems during the last meters and finished outside the top 10.
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