Stage 1 favorites of the UAE Tour 2024 | Desert winds spell echelon Alert for Kooij & team! 🌪️

The UAE Tour could nowadays be seen as the unofficial World Championships for sprinters. Just about everyone with fast legs has made the trip to the Middle East, where the WorldTour race kicks off on Monday. IDLProCycling.com keeps you informed about what to expect on day one.

We start in Madinat Zayed, literally in the heart of the Middle East. It's no coincidence that the organization has dubbed this opening stage the 'Stage of the Desert'. The first 45 kilometers are on long, straight roads through the desert, where after almost 55 kilometers, the finish line in Liwa will be reached. With the wind coming from a diagonal direction, the danger of echelons is immediately present.

Then, we move through the dunes of Moreeb, where it will be a constant slight up and down, including on an 18-kilometer-long cycling path in that region. After two laps, we head back towards Liwa, where we finish at the palace of the namesake place.

However, the final stretch of the first stage isn't as straightforward as we've seen in other potential sprint stages of this UAE Tour. The last five hundred meters feature a climb with a gradient of just over five percent, a first in the history of the UAE Tour for a stage finish.

Climbs
None

Times
Start: 1:10 PM (10:10 AM CET)
Finish: 4:30 PM (1:30 PM CET)

Beware: echelon alert! The wind will be blowing at strong speeds from the northwest, while the riders will have to head south through the desert in the first fifty kilometers. This means the wind will be at their backs at an angle, perfect for making a move. The temperature will be 25 degrees Celsius.

Echelons or not, there's a good chance that a sprinter will win this opening stage of the UAE Tour. So many teams are bringing top sprinters to the United Arab Emirates that several of these speedsters are likely to survive the battle against the wind. This has been considered in our favorites list, although the GC riders and their teams will also need to be extremely vigilant in the first fifty kilometers.

After a day of battling through the desert followed by some elevation gains and a slight uphill sprint, this scenario favors the stronger sprinters. Two of them stand out in this UAE Tour: Olav Kooij (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), riders whose speed does not easily diminish after a hard race and who can also handle themselves well in the wind.

Looking at the purer sprinters for this UAE Tour, we're talking about Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla), Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL), and Sam Welsford (BORA-hansgrohe). All have brought their lead-out trains, although Welsford might just as well give Danny van Poppel the nod. The Dutchman is one of the stronger classics riders at the start of this UAE Tour, in a year where types like Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna are missing.

As mentioned: the UAE Tour is teeming with fast men. Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech), Fernando Gaviria (Movistar), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Elia Viviani (INEOS Grenadiers), Arne Marit (Intermarché-Wanty), Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R), and Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE-Team Emirates) will all be looking for their chance in this first stage. Riders like Ackermann and Marit, with their classics background, might have a better shot compared to the really flat sprints.

If the race turns into a battlefield in the hilly zone after the desert stretch, riders like Pello Bilbao, Brandon McNulty, Luke Plapp, and Ilan Van Wilder could potentially use their climbing prowess on the uphill sections. But that's a lot of ifs. It's a stage that could unfold in many different ways, as you can tell.

Top favorites: Olav Kooij (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck)
Outsiders: Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla), Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Sam Welsford (BORA-hansgrohe)
Long shots: Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech), Fernando Gaviria (Movistar), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Elia Viviani (INEOS Grenadiers), Arne Marit (Intermarché-Wanty), Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R), Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE-Team Emirates) and Danny van Poppel (BORA-hansgrohe)