The World Tour visits the Emirates
Almost a month has passed since the Australian events that opened the 2023 Men's UCI World Tour (Santos Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race). Now, the highest category of world cycling returns from Monday, February 20, and it does so in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE Tour is the most important cycling event in the Arab world, and marks the culmination of an intense month of February, in which the region has also hosted the UAE Tour Women (2.WWT), the Tour of Oman (2.Pro) and the Saudi Tour (2.1).
The route
Of the 7 stages that make up the race, 4 are totally flat and seem well suited for bunch sprints (stages 1, 4, 5 and 6), while the general classification will be contested at the two mountaintop finishes of the race, Jebel Jais ( 19 km at 5.6%) (stage 3) and Jebel Hafeet (10.7 km at 6.8%) (stage 7). In addition, on the second day of racing we will be able to enjoy a team time trial, a discipline that is less and less usual in current cycling.
Although most of the course is completely flat, it is likely that we will see echelons in some of the stages, since many of the roads through which the race travels cross the desert and are totally exposed to the winds.
Favorites
Without the winner of the last two editions of the race, Tadej Pogačar (1200), two of the top favorites for the general classification are the cyclists who accompanied him on the podium last year, Adam Yates (1000) and Pello Bilbao (1000). Along with them, world champion Remco Evenepoel (1200), Brandon McNulty (800), Jay Vine (400), Geoffrey Bouchard (400) and Lucas Plapp (200) make up an interesting list of favorites.
With plenty of opportunities for sprinters, many of the world's fastest men didn't want to miss the race. Tim Merlier (800), Sam Bennett (800), Mark Cavendish (800), Fernando Gaviria (800), Caleb Ewan (800), Dylan Groenewegen (600), Elia Viviani (600), Cees Bol (400) and Juan Sebastian Molano (400) are some of the most prominent.
However, we will have to keep an eye on the starting list, as there are still many teams to confirm their line-ups.