Jumbo-Visma took the victory on the first stage of the UAE Tour, a team time trial which they won by seven seconds over Sunweb, with Bahrain-Merida rounding off the podium at nine seconds down.
Primoz Roglic crossed the line first to take the leader’s jersey.
“It was a very fast time trial and of course we’re very happy to start the season with this performance,” Roglic said. “We came here with strong time trialists.
“We didn’t really decide that I’d cross the line first but I took a strong turn at the end. It’s nice to be in the lead and we want to win the race overall, but there are hard stages to come and we have to take it day by day.”
The second stage of the WorldTour race is expected to conclude in a sprint finish. The 184km stage tomorrow will take the riders from Yas Mall to Abu Dhabi Breakwater.
UAE Tour 2019 – stage 1 results (Al Hudayriat Island – Al Hudayriat Island TTT):
| 1 | Jumbo-Visma | 16:49 |
| 2 | Team Sunweb | +07” |
| 3 | Bahrain-Merida | +09” |
| 4 | Team Sky | +14” |
| 5 | Movistar | +18” |
| 6 | CCC | +24” |
| 7 | Deceuninck-Quick-Step | +26” |
| 8 | EF Education First | ,, |
| 9 | Bora-hansgrohe | +28” |
| 10 | Dimension Data | ,, |
UAE Tour 2019 – general classification after stage 1:
| 1 | Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) | 16:49 |
| 2 | Laurens De Plus (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 3 | Jos Van Emden (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 4 | Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 5 | Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb) | +07” |
| 6 | Chad Haga (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 7 | Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 8 | Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 9 | Nikias Arndt (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 10 | Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) | +08” |
