Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) won the opening stage of the Dubai Tour beating Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) after producing a powerful sprint.
The inaugural stage of the Dubai Tour kicked off with an attack of five riders, who managed to take a four-minute gap on the peloton. Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF), Matteo Bono (UAE Abu Dhabi), Silvan Dillier (BMC), Daniel Pearson (Aqua Blue Sport) and Tom Stewart (ONE Pro Cycling) were the ones to animate the stage in its first part, but were always kept under control by the Quick-Step Floors team. The escapees’ adventure came to an end with ten kilometers to go.
As the sprint trains began forming, the Quick-Step Floors boys moved their way through the peloton and took the front inside the final two kilometers, just after the last roundabout. Other teams tried to counter, but couldn’t do anything against the blue train, as Matteo Trentin and Fabio Sabatini brought Marcel Kittel in an excellent position just 200 meters from the line, setting him up for his sixth career victory in the Dubai Tour.
“I’m really happy. In the last few days I felt I was very confident about the team. I’m happy to have a winning start, just like last year”, said Kittel, the race’s first overall leader. “It was difficult to time it right because there are a lot of strong sprinters here and you need to find the right moment. We were always in a good position, not really in the front, but we chose the right distance to go for it. After we passed the last roundabout, we tried to find each other and we went full gas to the finish line. It worked really well.”
Dubai Tour 2017 – stage 1 results (Dubai – Dubai):
| 1 | Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) | 4:06:33 |
| 2 | Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) | ,, |
| 3 | Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 4 | John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 5 | Sacha Modolo (UAE Abu Dhabi) | ,, |
| 6 | Elia Viviani (Team Sky) | ,, |
| 7 | Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC) | ,, |
| 8 | Simone Consonni (UAE Abu Dhabi) | ,, |
| 9 | Steele Von Hoff (ONE) | ,, |
| 10 | Adam Blythe (Aqua Blue Sport) | ,, |
General classification after stage 1:
| 1 | Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) | 4:06:33 |
| 2 | Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF) | +03” |
| 3 | Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) | +04” |
| 4 | Thomas Stewart (ONE) | ,, |
| 5 | Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) | +06” |
| 6 | Silvan Dillier (BMC) | ,, |
| 7 | John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) | +10” |
| 8 | Sacha Modolo (UAE Abu Dhabi) | ,, |
| 9 | Elia Viviani (Team Sky) | ,, |
| 10 | Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC) | ,, |
