First things first: Yes, Tadej Pogačar won the UAE Tour. And yes, he won the Queen Stage, and the other summit finish – although that first one was closer – on his way to, let’s face it, inevitable overall victory.
There’s not a great deal more to say about Pogačar’s season-opening victories, except perhaps that he should have been much closer to victory on day one, and of course his stage 5 crosswind exploits, but what else happened at the UAE Tour?
It was actually quite a distant cousin of the typically dull desert sprintfest that's interrupted by a couple of token climbing stages. Sure, one or two stages were about as ordinary as they come, but though on paper it all looks pretty explanatory, there’s a whole lot more to read around those results.
Jonathan Milan positions himself among Monument favourites
Lidl-Trek’s favoured fast man Jonathan Milan had already earned himself a spot among some of the best sprinters in the peloton, if not the pure sprinters, but on a tough, technical finale, Milan is hard to beat, especially where there’s any kind of ramp involved.
He was in his element, then, on stage 1 with its vicious final kilometre. The gradient even reached double figures for a short stretch, which brought some of the punchier climbers into the mix – Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe), Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto), Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL), Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana) and Pogačar all made it into the topsy-turvy top 10, though the latter went pop after launching too early, a rare mistake – but Milan had the lungs and legs to beat them all.
The 24-year-old has always been one of the better climbers from the sprinting cohort, but it certainly appears that he’s been working on his uphill efforts coming into 2025. He even finished second to Colombian pure climber and eventual champion Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) on stage 4 of the Volta a la Communitat Valenciana earlier in February, all 6 foot 4 of Italian horsepower putting time into some of the sport’s reliable GC contenders like outgoing race leader Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe), Ben O’Connor (Jayco-AlUla), etc.
Milan was a solid presence for rising super-team Lidl-Trek throughout the Classics last year, Gent-Wevelgem a particular highlight, but all the signs point to his fancying a run at the first Monument of the season with its punchy run-in over the Cipressa and Poggio.
He will of course be at Milan-San Remo alongside Mads Pedersen who has thrice finished in the top six, not to mention 2021 champion Jasper Stuyven, but what could feel more right than Jonny Milan, Milan-San Remo champion?
Tim Merlier is still super quick
Although the Italian sprinter was able to double up in the first traditional, super-straight sprint of the week, Tim Merlier’s (Soudal-QuickStep) second-place finish was the first taste of what would develop into a winning turn of pace later in the race.
We’ll get to the earlier drama of stage 5 shortly, including the crashes that affected sprinters and GC contenders alike, but the finale is where Merlier finally got his chance to shine. Presented with the carrot that was Luka Mezgeč (Jayco-AlUla) who had lost his leader to a crash, the sprinters charged after the Slovenian, and after finding Milan’s wheel, Merlier launched up the middle to victory by half a length.
A freak incident then befell the European champion as he celebrated the win, careening through the usual circus in the finish area and hitting the deck fairly hard, but he was left relatively unaffected, and on the following day, he doubled up – this time with a thoroughly dominant acceleration that put several bike lengths between himself and second-place Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Philipsen, meanwhile, endured a rare winless week on the tools, opening his 2025 account with a relegation from second to last in the group (52nd) for dangerous sprint deviation on stage 1. He was pragmatic, though, as he looks ahead to bigger goals including a Milan-San Remo defence, insisting after stage 6 that “until April I am a classics rider; from May I am a sprinter.”
Crosswinds take the peloton to school
Crosswinds in the desert are nothing new, but the heightened tension and threat to peace rarely fail to spice up what might otherwise be rather tedious bike racing. While recency bias may well be in play, the 2025 UAE Tour seemed more affected than in previous editions, and that put the whole peloton on high alert.
The air first turned orange with airborne dust on stage 1, but havoc wasn’t wrought until stage 4, when the last 50 km were raced at a furious pace as the groups split and re-formed, then split again. The echelons did not ultimately have much if any impact on the result, but it was a schooling for the peloton, and especially those with potential stage winners or GC contenders, who needed to ensure decent positioning and constant vigilance.
That lesson was repeated in the subsequent stages and truly put into practice on stage 7. Many will have hoped for a peaceful cruise to the foot of Jebel Hafeet, but the wind was blowing yet again, and no one could rest on their laurels, even with a strong 11-man breakaway halting hostilities in the bunch.
The peace didn’t last, and the bunch began to break into echelons after barely 50 km. This time, the split was terminal, and while top marks went to usual suspects Soudal-QuickStep, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Lidl-Trek, Movistar and UAE Team Emirates among others, many had missed the boat, including reigning UAE Tour champion Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto), Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R), Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), Michael Storer (Tudor) and all of EF Education-EasyPost.
“A lot of guys had the last chance to do something today,” Pogačar said at the finish. “With the crosswinds, it was good to make some chaos in the group and for us GC riders we had to be careful and attentive. It split the first time in the crosswinds. Somehow it worked. At first I didn’t believe it would be cooperative but it went to the finish so it was a good day.”
The other GC riders, or the race for second
It wasn’t just a showcase for Pogačar – although actually, that’s exactly what it was, being his team’s home race and in the presence of a whole crowd of UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s executive minds – but there were other GC contenders and climbers who showed strong form at the UAE Tour.
Finn Fisher-Black and Oscar Onley made themselves noticed as early as stage 1, finishing second and fifth behind Milan, and Onley followed that up with second in Pogačar’s wake on stage 3. The young Scot paid a small price for his quick reaction to the world champion’s acceleration on the stage 7 Jebel Hafeet finale, but he still managed to climb to 5th on the stage and overall.
It’s consistent performances like these, and the Movistar double act of Iván Romeo and Pablo Castrillo, that are indicative of the always-on Pogačar era, matched also by the fighting spirits of relative veterans Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and Pello Bilbao who joined the world champion on the podium.
A few words should go to Josh Tarling here too, who until going pop on Jebel Hafeet, stayed in second overall and within 21 seconds of Pogačar. The towering young rider was always going to be a leading favourite in stage 2's pan-flat ITT (12.2 km), but he was meant to then plummet out of the race lead on stage 3’s finish up Jebel Jais. He did lose the red jersey, but only by 18 seconds, and for the remainder of the race, the Welshman wore the white jersey of best young rider before handing it over to Iván Romeo. We’re not about to suggest that Tarling might be a future GC star, but here’s a man who can certainly climb when he needs to, which makes him a tantalising prospect for the classics – he’s like teammate Filippo Ganna in more ways than one.
The UAE Tour is not always boring
As has already been said, the UAE Tour isn’t exactly known for thriller action from start to finish; in fact, it’s probably fair to say most see it as the polar opposite. However, the organisers – and the conditions – set up a more-than-usually intriguing week of racing in the desert.
Take stage 1, for instance. In previous years, the opening day would more or less ease the peloton into things with an alarmingly flat route designed for a Merlier, or a Philipsen, or a Cavendish. But this year they plotted a unique rolling(-ish) route that included a beautifully smooth bike path through the Al Ramlah dunes, and then found an uphill finish to challenge the fast men.
Sure, there were then a couple of traditional snore-inducing stages that were little more than elaborate training rides, but it’s perhaps in part thanks to the event’s reputed tedium that riders like Pogačar – and Elisa Longo Borghini, Lorena Wiebes, et al. at the recent UAE Tour Women – have taken it upon themselves to make something of the race.
Or it was just the wind doing its thing, and next year it will all go back to normal. Sigh.
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