Tim Merlier won stage 1 of the AIUIa Tour, giving Soudal-QuickStep their first victory of the 2025 season.
Third last year on the identical stage opener at Al Manshiyah Train Station, this time Merlier went from long down the left-hand side of the barriers to win by over a bike length on Colombian sprint star Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
Maikel Ziljaard was third, acting as team sprinter for Tudor ProCycling after their usual fastman, Arvid de Kleijn, was caught up in a late four-rider crash
Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5) attempted to surprise Merlier on the right-hand side of the broad, flat finishing straight with his own sprint, but the Belgian timed his move perfectly on the left and secured the 51st win of his career.
"It's always nice to start the season with a win. It'll motivate the team," Merlier said after adding a third triumph to his two victories in the AIUIa Tour in 2024.
"It was as always, quite nervous in the first race of the season, it's difficult to do things perfectly but I think we did well."
"At 1.8 kilometres to go I lost Bert [Van Lerberghe, leadout man] a bit, but then in the U-turn I was back on his wheel. He was in the wind for almost one kilometre so that was a perfect job on his part."
How it unfolded
Six riders attacked after just 10 kilometres on the largely flat stage 142.7km stage: Alexandre Vinokourov (XDS-Astana), Azzam Alabdulmunim (Saudi Arabia), Alhur Alkulaif (Saudi Arabia), Masaki Yamamoto (JCL Team Utko), Muhamed Nur Aiman Bin Rosli (Terengganu) and Kongphob Thimachai (Roojai insurance).
After a brisk start, with average speeds of over 42kmh for the first hour, the half dozen managed to establish roughly a minute's advantage. But the sprinters' squads like Soudal-Quick Step, Jayco-AIUIa and Picnic-PostNL jointly kept the pace high behind on the gently undulating desert roads.
With 50 kilometres to go the gap was down to a scant 50 seconds, and the chasing peloton visibly slowed so as to ensure the break was not brought back too soon.
A puncture for Merlier slowed down the process further but then the two Saudi Arabian National team riders both dropped back to the bunch as well.
By the time the leaders swept into the finishing straight for the first of three visits, only Yamamoto and Rosli were ahead, picking up valuable bonus seconds prior to being caught almost immediately afterwards.
Jayco-AIUIa moved to the front with Soudal-QuickStep for a ferocious drive round the second final lap of largely broad, flat boulevards. But despite a fine leadout effort from Q36.5 to help GC leader Tom Pidcock pick up bonus seconds, Uno-X and Wagner Bazin WB were able to get ahead and deny the Briton any bonuses.
Picnic-PostNL pushed to the front to briefly remind the pack that they had last year's stage 1 winner Casper van Uden in their 2025 AIUIa line-up but Soudal-QuickStep reasserted their dominance once again.
A late crash, though, at the back of the bunch, brought down potential GC contender Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who finished more than six minutes down at the finish, as well as sprinters Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) and Tudor's Arvid de Kleijn.
Following the late surge of speed in the pack and the crash, a front group of around 60 riders tore around the last left-hand bend and into the final 200 metres of the race, with Q36.5 Emils Liepinš still tussling for some kind of nominal control at the front of the pack.
Merlier's bright white jersey of European champion was visible just behind Lerberghe on the opposite side of the road, and a long, powerful drive for the line easily netted the Belgian sprinter the victory.
Results
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