A day for the fast men – and for Pascal Ackermann. Even before the start of today’s 148 km opening stage of the UAE Tour 2020 in Dubai, the chance for a potential sprint finish was high. A group of four riders formed early on, leading the way for much of the stage, holding the chasing peloton at bay with around two minutes advantage most of the day. When the last escapees were caught nine kilometres to go, it finally all came down to the expected bunch sprint. In a chaotic finale, Ackermann started his sprint very early and managed to surprise the other favourites. With a strong performance on the last metres, the BORA-hansgrohe rider took the win ahead of Caleb Ewan and Rudy Barbier. It was Ackermann’s second win this season and the first WorldTour victory for Bora-hansgrohe in 2020. With his opening victory, Ackermann also took over the overall lead in the general classification.
Results
01 P.Ackermann 3h30’05”
02 C.Ewan + 0:00
03 R.Barbier + 0:00
04 D.Groenewegen + 0:00
05 L.Mezgec + 0:00
From the Finish Line
“Wow! I’m still a little bit speechless about this victory. All the big sprinter names are present and coming here I wasn’t sure I had the shape to win. The last kilometres were a bit chaotic, but when I saw a gap opening in front of me with 300 metres to go, I just went for it. It was a very long sprint and I’m really happy that I could start the UAE Tour 2020 with such a big result. I want to thank my teammates who brought me to a very good position in the finale. We can now take it a bit easier, but we will, of course, try our best to win more stages.” – Pascal Ackermann
“Our goal was to set Pascal Ackermann for the expected sprint finish. Since there are a lot of sprinter teams here, we knew that the finale would be a very hard one. That’s why we tried to save as much energy as possible during the stage. In the last kilometres, Michael Schwarzmann and Rüdiger Selig prepared the sprint for Pascal which was not easy as many teams tried to set up their sprint trains at the same time. Pascal did an awesome job which makes us confident for the next days. We have a very strong team here at UAE Tour that can get victories in both stages and GC.” – Enrico Poitschke, Sports Director
