Our team finished seventh on the first day of the season’s third World Tour race.
Almost the size of Abu Dhabi’s main island, the Al Hudayriat Island welcomed the riders for the inaugural edition of the UAE Tour, which came to life this year after the Dubai Tour and Abu Dhabi Tour decided to merge.
Deceuninck – Quick-Step, who in eight previous outings in the UAE Team Emirates have racked up 15 victories, came to the start with Italian Champion Elia Viviani – the most successful sprinter of 2018 – Dries Devenyns, neo-pro Remco Evenepoel, Mikkel Honoré, James Knox, Michael Mørkøv and Fabio Sabatini, and were the last team to roll down the start ramp.
The seven put in a solid and composed ride, averaging more than 55km/h over the 16km-long flat course of Sunday’s team time trial, and concluded the stage in 17:15, less than half a minute down on Jumbo-Visma, who took the spoils. Remco Evenepoel, who made his World Tour debut at the UAE Tour, is well-placed in the best young rider classification, where the 19-year-old Belgian prodigy hopes to be a protagonist next week.
“We are satisfied with our team’s display today, giving that we have many young guys, like James, Remco and Mikkel. Considering this and also the fact that many of the other teams could rely on TT specialists, I don’t think we could have gone any faster, so at the end of the day we are content with the result. It was a bit windier than yesterday when we did the recon, which made the pacing different, as we didn’t want to lose riders early. The plan was to go as long as possible with all seven guys and do a smooth TTT”, said sports director Geert Van Bondt at the end of stage 1.
Photo credit: ©Justin Setterfield/ Getty Images
