Italian Elia Viviani (Team Sky) took the win today on the second stage of the Dubai Tour (2.HC) from Dubai to Palm Jumeirah outsprinting compatriots Sacha Modolo (Lampre – Merida), Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) and Andrea Guardini (Astana Pro Team).
With just a kilometre remaining, a crash near the front of the bunch ruled Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) and Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) out of contention.
After coming off the wheel of his lead-out man Ben Swift in the last hundred metres, Modolo was unable to get around Viviani who took his first win of the season. The Team Sky rider also moves into the race lead.
Viviani said afterwards: “[Michal] Golas, Andy Fenn and [Ben] Swifty did a perfect lead-out for me. We came out of the tunnel really, really fast. Andy and Swifty took me to 100m to go so a big thanks to the team. Perfect job!
“Yesterday we had some faults and we went too early. I had to do two sprints and I’m not competitive with big sprinters if I have to sprint to take position before sprinting for the victory.
“We had a good meeting this morning with (Sport Directors) Nico (Portal) and Brett (Lancaster). Brett has a lot of experience in the lead-outs and we knew yesterday that we went too early. Everyone was really motivated after that and I’m really happy we worked out.”
Stage Results
1 Elia Viviani (Ita) Team Sky 4:07:39
2 Sacha Modolo (Ita) Lampre – Merida
3 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo
4 Andrea Guardini (Ita) Astana Pro Team
5 Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu) Al Nasr Pro Cycling Team-Dubai
6 Ben Swift (GBr) Team Sky
7 Michal Kolar (Svk) Tinkoff Team
8 Grzegorz Stepniak (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
9 Chris Opie (GBr) ONE Pro Cycling
10 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Dimension Data
Nice podium girls…