For Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), racing the UAE Tour Women is special in more than just wearing bib number 1 as the 2023 winner. The Middle Eastern race also marks her comeback to the peloton after a long period with illness and injuries, having had to abandon the last three races she started – Giro d’Italia Donne, Tour de France Femmes, and Tour de Romandie.
With just over 50 kilometres to go, the Italian champion hit the deck in a crash. But unlike last year, she was lucky and escaped with only a small cut on her arm, easily chasing back to the peloton.
“It was just a small crash without consequences. And then I had a small flat tyre on the front but overall, nothing special,” Longo Borghini confirmed to Cyclingnews after the 122km stage.
Early on, the strong wind forced a split in the peloton, riders took opportunities to attack and there were several crashes. Eventually it all came back together, and Longo Borghini was part of it all again.
“It’s been nice to be back. I had really been looking forward to it. I think I experienced almost everything you can experience in one season, all in one stage, but I’m very happy to be back racing.”
The Italian champion is part of a large pack sitting just 10 seconds out of the overall lead, taken on the opening day by stage 1 winner Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime).
Attacks all day – but no success
Without echelons, the stage was instead shaped by several breakaways. The most active rider was Yanina Kuskova (Tashkent City Women) who made a made a solo move, then bridged to Gaia Segato (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) after her first attempt had been brought back.
By winning the day’s second intermediate sprint, Kuskova took the lead in the U23 classification and the intermediate sprint classification, earning two trips onto the podium at the Dubai Harbour.
“I am very happy to get the young rider’s jersey. That was my plan for today, and I am happy to have made it work,” Kuskova told Cyclingnews with her sports director acting as translator between English and Russian.
Going forward, Kuskova has a goal for the general classification: “I would like to keep one of the jerseys to the end of the race, but I also want to be top 20 overall. I know that there are a lot of strong riders here, a top 20 would be great,” she said.
In the final of the stage, Claire Steels (Movistar Team) fell victim to a crash, but three of her teammates dropped back to help their GC leader back to the peloton.
And as the…
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