UAE Tour Stage 7: Samuele Battistella, Matteo Sobrero, Luis Leon Sanchez on the attack, Yevgeniy Gidich takes 10th in the sprint
The UAE Tour came to an end today with the seventh and final stage in Abu Dhabi, where Astana – Premier Tech was active at the front of the race with Samuele Battistella and Matteo Sobrero marking their presence in the daily breakaway, and Luis Leon Sanchez launching an attack from the peloton after the break had been caught back.
However, at the end of the day everything came down to a bunch sprint won by the Australian rider Caleb Ewan. Astana – Premier Tech’s Kazakh rider Yevgeniy Gidich, who showed improvement day by day, did a good sprint and finished tenth.
“I think I did a good race today and a tenth place in the sprint with all the best sprinters is a nice performance for me. The team did a great job for me, especially Dmitriy, Luis Leon and Alexey, who brought me in a good position in the final. I am feeling really good and my form is improving day by day. This race provided me with a good preparation towards my next goals, and I hope to keep on improving and to get much better results in the upcoming races”, – said Yevgeniy Gidich.
The Slovenian Tadej Pogačar won the UAE Tour, Adam Yates and João Almeida completed the final podium with second and third places respectively.
Luis Leon Sanchez was the team’s best performer in the General Classification, finishing 20thoverall.
“In my opinion, we spent a nice week here in UAE. Despite not the best start to the race our riders showed themselves in a very good way. After losing the General Classification on stage one due to the echelons, we were fighting for a stage win and Alexey Lutsenko was really close to this goal. We can be happy with our young riders, who worked really well here. Now we are coming back to Europe and we are looking forward to the first big stage races there – Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico”, – said Dmitriy Fofonov, Team Performance Manager.
UAE Tour. Stage 7. Yas Mall – Abu Dhabi Breakwater, 147 km.
Stage Top-3: 1. Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal); 2. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick Step); 3. Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious).
Astana – Premier Tech Stage Top-3: 10. Yevgeniy Gidich; 56. Stefan De Bod; 66. Luis Leon Sanchez.
GC Top-3: 1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates); 2. Adam Yates (INEOS Grenadiers); 3. João Almeida (Deceuninck-Quick Step).
Astana – Premier Tech GC Top-3: 20. Luis Leon Sanchez; 24. Stefan De Bod; 31. Samuele Battistella.
Photo credit: @GettyImages