Luka Mezgec (Team Jayco Alula) followed Tadej Pogacar’s example of springing a surprise on stage five of the UAE Tour and made a skilful and brave move into the stage’s final corner, surprising the sprinters and coming close to pulling off the win, the exciting move makes him our UAE Tour rider of the day.
Stage five of the UAE Tour was a relatively short 160km jaunt starting at the American University Dubai, and finishing up at the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University under a blazing sun.
The day's early five-man break formed just a few short kilometres after the starter flag dropped. The peloton was happy to let the move go, seemingly content to have the script for the day's racing written early. Carlos Samudio and Djordje Djuric of Toscana Factory Team Vini Fantini bridged across, both on the hunt for sprint points. There was some aggressive riding and gamesmanship involved while the break formed with more than one rider from the same team in the mix and with the fight for the intermediate points standings informing team tactics.
A few kilometres later with around 148km to go, the break had a gap of just under two minutes on the peloton, which was rolling along calmly on the wide Dubai highways. However, within a few short kilometres, Tadej Pogacar moved from almost the very back of the peloton to the front, and then off it.
UAE Emirates-XRG Rider Domen Novak floated up to the front of the peloton on the left-hand inside with Tadej Pogacar on his wheel, the pair stalled for a moment until the world champion Pogacar pushed Novak’s hip, and with that they went, rolling off the front of the peloton and riding across to the breakaway, taking a few riders with them. Josh Tarling, perhaps panicking slightly at second overall in the overall standings, countered and appeared to be trying to bridge across from the peloton, but seemed to think better of it after some moments.
The Pogacar group rode across to the front with ease, the breakaway riders sat up when they saw the group coming across and must have been shocked when they realised the world champion himself was now one of their number.
The breakaway rode well together with all riders contributing and riding smoothly. At least three teams had more than one rider in the move, and the group stretched their advantage to a maximum of around two and a half minutes. It looked for a while like the breakaway would stick and a Pogacar victory would almost be assured in the sprint, but slowly the long, hot, constant effort on the wide-open Dubai highways seemed to toll and the peloton slowly began to reel in the move.
Pogacar himself took the intermediate sprint bonus seconds with 116km to go, but the gap continued to reduce with the sprinter's teams riding on the front. Nothing is certain when it comes to Tadej Pogacar, would the world champion simply switch gear and keep the peloton at bay? It turned out not even the Slovenian phenom had the power to do that on the flat, fast roads.
Wih 38 kilometres to go the breakaway had been swallowed, and the peloton had slowed down, perhaps glad of a chance to recover before the stage's sprint finale. Had Pogacar ripped up the script simply for the hell of it, or had he needed more of a workout than the one just rolling along in the bunch would offer?
The pace slowly built inside the last twenty kilometres, the peloton had a headwind to contend with, so positioning and staying out of the wind would be important for the bunch's fast men. A crash at just over three kilometres to go brought down Ben Swift and Carlos Rodriguez amongst others, but the head of the peloton was hurtling towards a fast right-hand bend with a kilometre and a half to go that the riders simply pedalled through.
Just inside the last kilometre, the leading riders moved to the left-hand side of the road to get set up for the final fast right-hander leading into the finishing straight. Before they could enter the corner Luka Mezgec carried a tremendous amount of pace up the right-hand side of the bunch, railed the corner with far more speed than the leading riders and exited the sweeping bend with multiple bike lengths on the bunch, it was a brave, bold, and importantly safe move. The only thing the Slovenian rider could do was put his head down and go to see if he could hold off the sprinters and take the win.
The move caused disruption and really drew the sprinters out early, but ultimately the Slovenian was caught and Tim Merlier took the win for Soudal - Quickstep, Mezgec still rolled in for 10th place, a testament to the amount of speed he carried out of the last corner and in part due to another crash behind as the sprint opened up. Like his countryman Pogacar, Mezgec’s skill injected excitement into what could have been a flat formulaic sprint stage.
