Pogačar has fun in the desert

World champion wins UAE Tour overall, with some chaos on the way

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With hindsight, the UAE Tour was probably a foregone conclusion. Four sprint stages, a time trial, and two summit finishes at his team's home race were unlikely to challenge Tadej Pogačar, and they didn't. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider won the two stages he was supposed to, finished high up in the time trial, and therefore won overall by more than a minute.

His victories on Jebel Jais and Jebel Hafeet were telegraphed, with stage three finishing in Pogačar outsprinting Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL) and Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale), and stage four seeing the UAE rider dropping UAE Tour top three: (1-r) Giulio Ciccone, Pogačar, Pello Bilbao everyone 7.4km from the finish, resulting in an inevitable solo win.