Ireland's Sam Bennett will have to wait for another race to open his 2022 account after the final sprinters' chance at UAE Tour was stolen away from the fastmen by a determined breakaway.
The stage victory - after 180km starting and finishing at Expo 2020 Dubai - was dominated by a six-rider breakaway that contained no fewer than three Gazprom-RusVelo riders; Mathias Vacek, Pavel Kochetkov and Dmitry Strakhov. Also in the move was Paul Lapeira (Ag2r Citroen) along with Johnatan Canaveral and Alessandro Tonelli, both from Bardiani-CSF-Faizane).
While the breakaway never built a gap of much more than five minutes, the top teams underestimated the escapees and left to too late to reel them in. The gap was still at one minute with 5km to and the bunch was slowed further by a crash just before the finish.
Advertisement
While Bennett's Bora-hansgrohe team was among those trying to peg back the breakaway, reduced to five men, they hung on by 15 seconds; 19-year-old Czech rider Mathias Vacek sprinting in to win from Lapeira and Strakhov.
Related News
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix), who has already won two stages on the race, won the bunch sprint for 6th place from Dylan Groenewegen (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Pascal Ackermann (UAE Tour), with Bennett taking 21st.
There was no change in the overall with stage 4 winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) hold the race lead ahead of the big finish tomorrow to the summit of Jebel Hafeet, where the Tour de France champion is favourite to win the day and wrap up the overall.
