Echelons, pounding, scrambling, and a magnificent sprint: Milan delivers another huge blow in UAE Tour

Jonathan Milan won stage four of the UAE Tour on Thursday. After a flat stage, the race exploded into action exactly where it was expected, and we had a wonderful, long-lasting echelon race. In the sprint of champions, which included almost all of the world's top sprinters, Milan won by a fraction of a second over Tim Merlier.

This morning, we started from Qidfa Beach in Fujairah on a flat 181-kilometer ride to Umm al Quwain. Pogacar wore the red leader's jersey, even though he would have preferred to leave it to Joshua Tarling (INEOS) so he could keep his rainbow jersey for a little longer. Michael Leonard (INEOS) and Dorde Djuric (Vini-Fantini) rode away from the start and were immediately allowed to break away from the peloton.

After the gap had increased to five minutes, the three sprint trains of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step), and Milan (Lidl-Trek) put a rider in the lead to control the race. Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier, Silvan Dillier, and Ayco Bastiaens kept the gap at 4:40 minutes heading into the first intermediate sprint, where Djuric took the points and thus also bonus seconds.

On behalf of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, Finn Fisher-Black took the one second that remained for the peloton. After the sprint, the peloton split briefly, with Pogacar at the front. However, the Slovenian was caught. The peloton reduced the two leaders' advantage from five to 2.45 minutes with 110 kilometers to go.

After all the excitement, we had to wait for the phase in which the wind would have its way. That phase began 60 kilometers from the finish line, and Alpecin-Deceuninck and UAE Team Emirates-XRG were the instigators. The pack broke into three pieces, and not everyone was there. Pogacar, Philipsen, Merlier, and Milan were all present, so going full throttle was unnecessary.

After part two had caught up with part one and the breakaway riders had been caught, all that remained was to wait for a third group to form, including Michael Storer (Tudor) and Gerben Thijssen (Intermarché). A few riders could break away once again because the pace slowed somewhat after the echelon towards the last forty kilometers. Black jersey wearer (for the intermediate sprint classification) Carlos Samudio (Vini Fantini) and his constant challenger Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani) were among them, as was former breakaway rider Djuric and Samudio teammate Lorenzo Quartucci.

The four of them put on a good show at the second intermediate sprint of the day, with Djuric as the new wearer of the black, with the peloton a minute behind. Then it was time for the final, with a bunch sprint. Because the pace was so high, another split occurred in the final. The same names were up at the front, and UAE, Quick Step, and Jayco-AlUla went full throttle. However, with three kilometers to go, everything came back together, ready for the sprint. There was a lot of pounding and scrambling, but fortunately, we crossed the finish line without any crashes, with Milan just slightly faster and with his powerful thighs.