It was the closest sprint yet at the UAE Tour, with Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) narrowly denying Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) his hat-trick of stage wins on stage 5 in a photo-finish victory.
Merlier was majorly out of position in the final kilometre, forced to launch from way down in the peloton with Kooij starting his sprint on the right-hand side of the road off the back of a strong Astana Qazaqstan lead out for Mark Cavendish.
As the Brit ran out of steam, Kooij made his dart for the line and just managed to pip Merlier by a few millimetres at the line with a great bike throw. Sam Welsford (Bora-Hansgrohe) was third after a significantly better leadout, but was just overhauled by Merlier and Kooij.
This was Kooij’s sixth win at WorldTour level and equally most prestigious, given the quality of the sprint field, alongside his stage victory at Paris-Nice in 2023.
“I’m really happy. I didn’t know, so we had to wait a bit, but after the first two sprints where it got better, you need to get everything to get the win and luckily today I did,” said Kooij immediately after the finish.
The tactics were clear for the Dutchman who nailed his targets for the final kilometre, in contrast to second place Merlier who started his sprint way down on the eventual winner after an absent leadout, albeit only narrowly losing out.
“Never hit too much with the headwind and try to get a good position in the last roundabout,” said Kooij of his tactics in the final.
“I thought maybe it was a bit far but then I could follow Mark Cavendish on the right and luckily saw a little gap to pass.”
It was victory number 30 for Kooij and another continuation of his journey to the upper echelons of sprinting. He is set to head to his first Grand Tour at the Giro d’Italia in May where he’ll hope to repeat his success with Wout van Aert as leadout.
More to come…
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