Paris (AFP) - Tadej Pogacar made an early-season statement when he sprinted away from an elite group on Wednesday to win the first climbing stage of the World Tour season in the UAE Tour.
A powerful bunch was still together as the 181-kilometre fourth stage slogged up Jebel Jais, the highest point in the Emirates.
Even though the gradient steepened to 7 per cent in the last 200 metres, the Slovenian, led out by two of his UAE team-mates, charged away.
"Despite all the attacks that followed one another uphill, I saw that practically all the big names of the race remained in the leading group, so I checked that we reached the final with the compact group, since I knew it would not be possible to go solo I decided to wait for the sprint," Pogacar told the Team UAE web site.
Briton Adam Yates of Ineos and Russian Aleksandr Vlasov of Bora gave chase in a frantic uphill sprint, but could not close the gap.
"It was a hard finale but the team work was super strong today," said Pogacar at the finish line.
"I'm super happy to take the stage and the jersey today and kick-off the year with a win."
The leading trio finished three seconds ahead of the next group of the shattered bunch.
"I was with Pogacar but he's pretty quick on this type of finish hey?It was the best we could do but we gave it a crack," said Yates.
Pogacar, the defending UAE champion, took the overall lead from Swiss rider Stefan Bissegger who was dropped earlier on the climb.
Pogacar had a bout of Covid at the start of February.
"Already in training, even after recovering from Covid-19, the sensations were very good, but in the race everything can be different; the period of the illness was not so heavy for me thankfully," he said.
The double Tour de France winner leads Filippo Ganna of Ineos by two seconds in the overall classification.
The Italian time-trial specialist managed to stay with the leaders on the climb and surged to the line in a desperate attempt to close the gap Pogacar had created.
"Ganna in second!A top ten of climbers and then the big fella," said Yates.
Vlasov is 13 seconds off the lead in third with Yates another two seconds back.
Thursday's fifth stage will cover 182 kilometres from Ras al Khaimah Corniche to Al Marjan Island and is likely to end in a sprint.
The race ends Saturday with another stage that finishes with a potentially decisive climb.
"Saturday will be the critical climb," said Yates.
