Tadej Pogacar takes the UAE Tour lead win Mountain Stage Win

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) has started his 2022 season with an impressive win on stage 4 of the UAE Tour, beating Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) to victory on the climb to Jebel Jais

With just 1km to go, more than 20 riders were in contention to win the race, but it was the 2021 Tour de France winner in the driving seat, with his UAE Team Emirates team-mates creating a lead-out train for him to benefit off the back of. 

The Slovenian takes the red leader's jersey into the fifth stage, just two seconds ahead of second-placed Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) on general classification. The Italian produced a spectacular performance to keep pace in the climb, showing he is more than just a time trial specialist.

“It was an amazing day. The teamwork was perfect. It was the first climb, with a lot of strong riders attacking left right and centre. The team did a super job bringing me to the final sprint, and I did my best possible and am super happy,” said Pogacar, who faces another summit finish at Jebel Hafeet on the final stage.

“I'm super happy to take the stage and kick off the year with a win. You don't know what can happen on the last day, you can lose time, so I'm super happy to take the jersey and the win today. So now we have two flat stages and then we focus on the final day and see how it goes.”

In the overall standings, Pogacar has two seconds in hand on Ganna, 13 on Vlasov and 15 on Yates.

Mark Cavendish (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) was a fell hard after 50km into the stage but the Briton remounted and rejoined the peloton shortly afterwards after changing his helmet.

VIDEO: UAE Tour Stage 4 Highlights

UAE Tour Stage 4 Top 10

1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 04:49:24
2 Adam Yates (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers 0:00:03
3 Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:15
4 Ruben Guerreiro (Por) EF Education-EasyPost 0:00:03
5 Damien Howson (Aus) BikeExchange-Jayco
6 Romain Bardet (Fra) Team DSM
7 Jai Hindley (Aus) Bora-Hansgrohe
8 Geoffrey Bouchard (Fra) AG2R Citroen Team
9 Jan Hirt (Cze) Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux
10 Pello Bilbao Lopez De Armentia (Spa) Bahrain Victorious

UAE Tour  GC after stage 4

1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 14:02:34
2 Filippo Ganna (Ita) Ineos Grenadiers 0:00:02
3 Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:13
4 Adam Yates (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers 0:00:15
5 Neilson Powless (USA) EF Education-EasyPost 0:00:23
6 João Almeida (Por) UAE Team Emirates 0:00:28
7 Pello Bilbao Lopez De Armentia (Spa) Bahrain Victorious 0:00:35
8 Oscar Rodriguez Garaicoechea (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:38
9 Ruben Guerreiro (Por) EF Education-EasyPost 0:00:40
10 Geoffrey Bouchard (Fra) AG2R Citroen Team 0:00:41