Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) outfoxed the other GC favourites to take victory on stage 3 of the UAE Tour after launching a perfectly timed tandem attack with teammate Valentin Paret-Peintre in the final 1.2km of the Jebel Jais climb.
The Australian held off the chase from Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) in second and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) in third after they failed to make contact following the opportunistic move.
After a brutal day in the crosswinds and an intriguing finale, Vine's second-place finish and six bonus seconds gained means he moves into the race lead ahead of teammate Brandon McNulty as the American struggled in the final sprint.
O'Connor gained ten bonus seconds with the win, moving him up to second overall, 11 seconds down on Vine while McNulty slipped to third, a further two seconds back.
Pre-race favourite Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) abandoned the race midway through the 21.1km climb after crashing hard earlier in the stage, leaving McNulty and Vine as co-leaders for the home team.
"It's been a while since I won a mountain top [finish] and it was amazing. The boys were super good today and second win of the year so it's pretty cool," said O'Connor immediately after the finish.
O'Connor signalled to Paret-Peintre once the Frenchman came alongside him in the final 1.2km, clearly telling him to put the hammer down with the sprint not suiting his best qualities. But it was nearly too fast even for O'Connor to hold on once they found separation.
"I just thought why not. In the sprint at the end I'm not always super confident so I just told him let's go full," said O'Connor.
"He was kind of dropping me off the wheel but it was sweet to get the gap and there's no better motivator than to see everyone behind you and try to get to the finish line first."
O'Connor wasn't visible for much of the largely flat stage, clearly shielded well by his teammates and staying out of trouble in the crosswinds and early phases of the climb. With Yates out and just 11 seconds separating him and Vine in first, he'll now be a big favourite for the overall with Jebel Hafeet arguably the better climb for him.
"All day I felt super good, even with the crosswinds at the start of the stage. So I always thought there was a chance," O'Connor said.
"It was sad to see Adam go down and lose his race from the crash, but as soon as you see one of their main GC riders down, it's an opportunity you need to take when it gets to the climb as it's one less guy to worry about.
"I don't know where I am overall now but it's nice to see if you can fight for the win for the race. We've still got three more sprint stages and Jebel Hafeet to come so it's still a lot of racing but it's sweet to be in the race."
How it unfolded
The third stage of the UAE Tour began to the script with intermediate sprint points leader Mark Stewart (Corratec-Vini Fantini) getting himself into the day's early break alongside Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
They would stay away for around 70km until the winds started to pick up and the carnage began to ensue. Suddenly a calm peloton was right up to full speed with Visma-Lease a Bike and Soudal-QuickStep among the teams splitting the race to pieces.
Echelons formed and the racing turned brutally intense in the wind, with a gap to the second group on the road quickly going out to more than 40 seconds. None of the pre-race GC favourites missed out but Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost) and key UAE Team Emirates domestique Mikkel Bjerg were among those in the chase.
Some tried to calm things down as the peloton very quickly completed 15km, but it continued with Bora-Hansgrohe even missing a new split with 74km to go.
A further 8km of pain would go by before finally the efforts were knocked off by teams such as DSM-Firmenich PostNL, who had been leading much of the echelon charge. A change of turn and with it wind direction meant that with 66km to go, racing was back together and the climbers could prepare for Jebel Jais.
Stewart took this chance to get ahead of the race again, this time with Dillier's teammate Jonas Rickaert. He would extend his lead in the black jersey competition at the second sprint point and was swept up at the foot of the 21.1km climb.
However, before this came the misfortune for Yates as everything calmed and the lead duo's gap went out past the three-minute mark. The Brit crashed hard in the middle of the peloton on what seemed to be his head and right shoulder after a touch of wheels.
He was up and running soon after and back in the peloton, but did take a moment to gather himself without much of a concussion check seeming to be carried out.
With Yates back in and in position, UAE Team Emirates retook their position at the front of the race for Yates, McNulty and Vine.
It was déjà vu of 2023 with 12km to go as Movistar made a tandem move off the front of the peloton with Einer Rubio jumping along with a teammate to pull him away. But this time around, with a Giro d'Italia stage win under his belt last May, the Colombian wasn't given the same advantage and was pegged back by the home team.
After sitting at the back of the peloton while his team paced, Yates slowly pulled over at the side of the road. He made the decision to stop and climbed into the team car, unfortunately abandoning with a clear issue from that earlier crash.
Jan Hirt poked the bear with 6km to go, attacking out of the peloton following a poor time trial on stage 2, but Bjerg still had enough in the legs to reel him in and keep pacing. The Dane seemed to be done when Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale showed first signs of their hand with 4km to go in aid of O'Connor.
Bjerg did return after a superhuman effort throughout the stage, but the end of his pull coincided with the Decathlon AG2R attack and saw Vine and McNulty put into a poor position.
With 900 metres still to go, Paret-Peintre flicked through his leader who went on to win. Behind, Vine was forced into action with Soudal-QuickStep making no impact on the gap to O'Connor and McNulty beginning to falter.
The Aussie 1-2 led home the peloton with Van Eetvelt making another step up and sprinting well in the bunch. McNulty finished outside of the top ten in 18th on the stage but thanks to his buffer from the time trial victory, stayed in the top three, two seconds off O'Connor and 13 from Vine.
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