Marcel Kittel (Quick Step Floors) got his season up and running today, after he powered to the win on stage 1 of the Dubai Tour which finished on the island of Palm Jumeirah, at the end of 181 fast kilometres.
The inaugural stage of the Dubai Tour kicked off with an attack of five riders, who managed to get 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 peloton and their escape came to an end with ten kilometres to go.
As the sprint trains began forming, the Quick-Step Floors team moved their way through the peloton and took the front inside the final two kilometres, just after the last roundabout.
Other teams tried to counter, but couldn’t do anything against the Belgian team as Matteo Trentin and Fabio Sabatini brought Marcel Kittel into an excellent position just 200 metres from the line, setting him up for his sixth career victory in the Dubai Tour. The 28-year-old German finished ahead of Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data).
“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.”
It also marked Kittel’s first ever victory on disc brakes as he said: “A lot of riders came to me today and asked me about that, they were curious about the disc brakes and how it feels to ride with it. I think I made the right choice and I’m happy to have it this season. The most important thing is that we came out on top today. Last year we won many races together, and that’s what we want to do also this season. The first race of the year is always insecure, because you can never know how things will work. All the guys were there today and did a great job, so this is also a victory of them.”
It was Quick-Step Floors’ seventh victory of the year, as Kittel became the team’s fifth different rider to win a race and open his year in style, after Jack Bauer won at the New Zealand National ITT Championships, and Tom Boonen, Fernando Gaviria and Maximiliano Richeze took victories at the Vuelta a San Juan.
