Marcel Kittel begins Dubai Tour defence with a win

Quick-Step Floors' German sprinter Marcel Kittel effortlessly powered over the line to win Stage One of the 2017 Dubai Tour to begin his defence of the title he won 12 months ago.

Credit: cyclingnews.com
Kittel had the full might of the famous Quickstep lead out train in his arsenal, and so easily beat Dylan Groenewegen of LottoNL-Jumbo and Dimension Data's Mark Cavendish into second and third respectively, on an entirely flat 181 kilometre course that started near the coast in the city centre, looped into the dessert, and finished on the Palm Jumeirah.

Being such a flat course and with three intermediate sprints complete with time bonuses on the parcours, a breakaway was swift to head up the road from the start in Dubai city centre; Nicola Boem of Bardiani, Silvan Dillier of BMC Racing, Matteo Bono of UAE Abu Dhabi, Daniel Pearson of Aqua Blue Sport and ONE Pro Cycling's Tom Stewart were battling to get out on their own from the second the flag dropped.

Boem narrowly beat Stewart at the first intermediate sprint, but the next was far more decisive: Boem jumping the group to take the points and time bonus by a few bike lengths. Dillier was determined to not have had a wasted day though, picking up a win at the third sprint after another tight fight with Stewart.

With only 10km to go, and the scenery becoming more and more city-like, the peloton finally caught the break and set about plotting the all important sprint finish.

Astana's Riccardo Minali ignited his sprint early but the power and might of Quick-Step and Kittel was undeniable, with the big German taking his first sprint win of 2017. Not to be ignored, though, is Cavendish who - we found out after the race - had endured the last four km with a flat tyre and still finished third, which is a massive achievement in of itself.

Kittel wears the Red leader's jersey heading into stage two which follows a similarly flat profile to today's, with Boem in second overall as a result of the time bonuses picked up on the stage and Groenewegen third.

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