Abu Dhabi Tour: Viviani sprints his way to Stage 2 win

ABU DHABI: Quick-Step Floors' Elia Viviani, winner of the Dubai Tour, claimed Stage 2 of the Abu Dhabi Tour taking himself to the highest of the General Classification in the process, tied on time (8:03:44s) with Stage 1 winner Alexander Kristoff (UAE Emirates), who finished 7th.

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Viviani sprinted previous Danny van Poppel (LottoNL-Jumbo) who claimed the White Jersey and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe), who came third, in the final moments of the race.

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The Rio Olympic gold medalist had a coarse get started in the Yas Island stage that culminated close to the Yas beach. Cross winds performed a deciding factor with Viviani stuck up behind the peloton that used to be break up in three due to the sturdy winds.

But the Italian had the reinforce of his teammates Julian Alaphilippe and Fabio Sabatini, who used to be the lead out man, and did an admirable process to help Viviani to a position of energy for the bunch sprint.

Similar to Stage 1, the preliminary breakaway workforce comprised 5 riders - Joey Rosskopf (BMC Racing), Jaco Venter (Dimension Data), Alessandro Tonelli (Bardiani CSF), Alexander Porsev (Gazprom-RusVelo), and Charles Planet (Novo Nordisk). They got away in the first few kilometers or even managed an opening of 4 minutes, however the next peloton diminished the space very quickly after the feeding zone.

But crosswinds broke the monotony with nearly 50 km to head. Viviani used to be caught in the again finish of the break up at the side of Kristoff and GC favorite Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb).

Leading the pack at time were Marcel Kittel (Katusha) and Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott) and it used to be Katusha, who picked up the pace first with and that lead used to be adopted through Movistar. Quick-steps rode onerous parallel to LottoNL-Jumbo, led through Ackermann.

However, in flamme rouge - the 1 km indicator - Quick-steps' Alaphilippe upped the ante, putting in Viviani for the overdue burst that saw him cruise previous van Poppel and Ackerman.

Nikolay Trusov received the intermediate sprint for Gazprom - RusVelo. Van Poppel's forged efficiency meant he moved to third position general time and level.

After the race, Viviani praised his team for their fabulous reinforce. "We had Julian Alaphilippe and Enric Mas in the front group. It was good for our GC but we also wanted to win the stage, so I asked the guys to wait for me and close the gap," he said.

"I feel lucky to have Quick-Step for leading me out: three guys are able to accelerate at the same speed I sprint. Now I just have to stay focused on Fabio Sabatini's wheel. He knows when to make an effort. He's the best lead-out man in the world. He's a different Saba than the team-mate I had at Liquigas before. With Max Richeze, we actually have the two best lead out men in the world, not just one," added Viviani.

Best younger rider Van Poppel said: "Elia Viviani is the fastest sprinter at the moment. It's not a shame to be second to him. But I'm disappointed because the team did a great job and I really wanted to finish it off. In the echelons, I was confident that our front group would make it because there were a lot of GC guys taking turns and I thought I had a big chance to win because Elia wasn't up there. They came across but it was nice to be part of a hard race. It'll be hard to defend the best young rider position because of the uphill finish on the last day but it'll be nice to race in the white jersey tomorrow."

(The correspondent's shuttle to Abu Dhabi used to be paid for through the Abu Dhabi Tour)