Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) took the overall victory in the Dubai Tour with a victory on the fifth stage.
The German won the opening two stages to claim the general classification lead and his only reverse came in stage three when he complained about being punched by Astana’s Andriy Grivko.
His title defence could have been blown off course on Friday, when a medium mountain finish was scheduled to conclude on Hatta Dam, but storms forced a cancellation of that stage.
In the final stage, the German outpaced Italian duo Elia Viviani and Riccardo Minali for his third stage win from four on the Tour.
“I’m super, super proud,” said Kittel. “I wanted to see how good I am this week and the team worked very well for me. We tried to control the race today, the chain of my lead out man fell off, so had to go for it and it worked out well.”
“When I came back to Dubai, I thought this is a nice race, it’s a goal for me, but I didn’t think it would go so well. The team did a really god job. It’s a very nice way to start the season”.
Dubai Tour 2017 – stage 5 results (Dubai-Dubai):
| 1 | Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) | 2:34:12 |
| 2 | Elia Viviani (Team Sky) | ,, |
| 3 | Riccardo Minali (Astana) | ,, |
| 4 | Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 5 | John Degenkolb (Trek Segafredo) | ,, |
| 6 | Sacha Modolo (UAE Abu Dhabi) | ,, |
| 7 | Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC) | ,, |
| 8 | Paolo Simion (Bardiani-CSF) | ,, |
| 9 | Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) | ,, |
| 10 | Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNl-Jumbo) | ,, |
Final general classification:
| 1 | Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) | 15:08:56 |
| 2 | Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNl-Jumbo) | +18” |
| 3 | John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) | +20” |
| 4 | Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC) | +24” |
| 5 | Elia Viviani (Team Sky) | ,, |
| 6 | Thomas Stewart (ONE) | ,, |
| 7 | Riccardo Minali (Astana) | +26” |
| 8 | Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 9 | Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data) | +27” |
| 10 | Alex Dowsett (Movistar) | ,, |
