Breakaway caught inside final 500 metres as Milan wins UAE Tour stage 4 ahead of younger brother

Stage 3 had still delivered a surprise, with Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) taking victory on the brutally steep finale to seize control of the general classification. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) cracked badly, while Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) limited the damage.

Thursday’s stage looked very different on paper. The UAE Tour is usually either completely flat, or flat with a monster climb right at the end — but stage 4 offered a more rolling route. Would it be hard enough to dislodge the sprinters? That was the question before the start.

From the gun, Georg Steinhauser (EF Education–EasyPost), Stefan De Bod (Terengganu Cycling Team), Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar), Patrick Gamper (Jayco AlUla) and James Knox (Picnic PostNL) formed the breakaway. The five quickly built a lead of just over two minutes, before Lidl–Trek took responsibility for the chase in the bunch.

Even if the course profile looked untypical, the race itself played out in familiar UAE Tour fashion. Lidl–Trek kept the escapees on a tight leash all day, gradually trimming the advantage metre by metre and second by second — with team leader Derek Gee also contributing to the pursuit.

On the fast run-in after the final descent, there was a crash in the peloton involving, among others, Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step), Daan Hoole (Lidl–Trek) and Fabio Jakobsen (Picnic PostNL). Hayter and the two Dutch riders were able to continue, but Robbe Ghys (Lidl–Trek) was forced to abandon as a result of the incident.

Despite the work of the sprint teams, the breakaway — with Knox already dropped — refused to surrender. With one kilometre to go, they still had around ten seconds in hand, setting up a tense finish to an otherwise quiet day. But inside the final 500 metres, the attackers were finally caught. In the chaotic sprint that followed, top favourite Milan still proved the fastest, ahead of Vernon in second and brother Matteo Milan in third.