After three days in which Lorena Wiebes turned the 2026 UAE Tour Women into a sprint clinic, the race reached the point it had been saving itself for: Jebel Hafeet, the long finishing climb that turns a controlled week into a raw contest. This is where the general classification stops being a careful collection of seconds and becomes a direct argument about who can attack, who can respond, and who can keep going when the road refuses to ease.
Elisa Longo Borghini arrived with the profile of a defending champion, and the team built to make the final day matter. She left with both the stage and the overall, again, because she read the climb better than anyone else and timed her winning move when the other contenders were finally at their limit.
A long approach that existed to deliver one decisive test
The 156km stage out of Al Ain began with the usual UAE tension, teams watching the wind, riders fighting for sheltered wheels, but it never became the kind of echelon day that can decide a race before the climb even starts. A handful of solo moves and brief attacks came and went, but nothing gained the freedom it needed to threaten the GC.
That mattered. It meant the race was still intact when the road tilted up at Green Mubazzarah and the full weight of the final day landed at once, everyone fresh enough to attack, everyone nervous enough to overreact, and everyone aware that Jebel Hafeet doesn’t forgive indecision.
UAE Team ADQ set the table, then the climb turns chaotic anyway
UAE Team ADQ rode the foot of the climb as you’d expect a team defending a favourite to ride it, steady, hard, and with a clear intention to reduce the group before the accelerations began. The effect was immediate. Riders were peeled off in layers, the front group shrinking to the names that mattered, and the pace making it difficult for anyone to launch something frivolous.
But once the strongest domestiques had done their damage, the climb became what it always becomes at the sharp end, a series of attacks and counter-attacks, each one designed not just to gain metres, but to force a rival to spend something they may not get back.
Photo Credit: Cor VosThe key phase: Spratt strikes, Niewiadoma presses, Longo Borghini refuses to blink
Amanda Spratt was one of the first to open the serious hostilities. It was the kind of move that forces a decision, follow now or risk the move becoming the bridge for someone else’s winning effort. Longo Borghini followed, and Kasia Niewiadoma followed her, exactly as a GC contender has to on a climb where the gaps can grow quickly once the rhythm breaks.
From there, the climb became a high-level chess match played at threshold. Niewiadoma tried repeatedly to turn it into a fight of sharp accelerations, probing for the moment Longo Borghini might hesitate. Longo Borghini, meanwhile, stayed composed, marking what needed to be marked, letting others show their cards, and never spending more than she had to.
It wasn’t passive. It was controlled. She rode like a rider who knew she didn’t need to win the argument on every sentence, just the final paragraph.
The winning move: a late solo attack that finally sticks
The difference came inside the last four kilometres when Longo Borghini made the kind of move that doesn’t ask a question, it delivers a verdict. She accelerated hard enough to create separation, then, crucially, she did it again after the first response had already cost her rivals.
Niewiadoma briefly clawed back towards her, the kind of determined, elastic effort that can save a race if the leader falters. But Longo Borghini read it perfectly. She waited until the moment Niewiadoma had almost closed, then lifted the pace once more. That second punch was the clincher, it turned a chase into damage control and gave Longo Borghini the clear air she needed to ride her own tempo to the summit.
From that point, it was classic Jebel Hafeet racing. One rider alone, shoulders still, cadence steady, building a gap not through panic but through certainty.
Photo Credit: Sprint Cycling AgencyBehind the leader: the podium reshuffles as the climb keeps taking its toll
Once Longo Borghini was gone, the climb didn’t soften, it simply moved the fight one rung down. The riders behind began to trade places as the earlier efforts came due. Niewiadoma, after spending so much trying to respond to the winning move, couldn’t hold off the riders coming back at her. Monica Trinca Colonel and Femke de Vries both rode strongly enough in the closing kilometres to pass her, turning the final section into a second battle for the stage podium and the remaining GC places.
It was a small but telling detail of how Longo Borghini won, she didn’t just attack, she forced everyone else into the kind of riding where they had to keep paying for their choices.
A champion’s finish: Longo Borghini wins the stage and the overall, again
Longo Borghini’s victory wasn’t about one explosive moment. It was about choosing the right moment to make the climb decisive, after letting the others spend themselves trying to force the issue earlier. She embraced the chaos, stayed calm, and then imposed clarity with one late, properly timed solo.
On a race that had spent three days celebrating sprint speed, the final day reminded everyone why the UAE Tour Women is ultimately a GC race, if you can win on Jebel Hafeet, you can win the whole thing.
A footnote that still matters: Bäckstedt’s white jersey fight ends on the climb
Zoe Bäckstedt’s under-23 lead couldn’t survive a finale designed for climbers, and Eleonora Ciabocco ultimately took the white jersey. Bäckstedt’s ride up the mountain was still a committed one, the sort of effort that leaves you empty, but the story of the day, and the race, belonged to the GC battle and Longo Borghini’s ability to settle it on her terms.
2026 UAE Tour Women stage 4 result
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2026 UAE Tour Women GC result
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
Main photo credit: Sprint Cycling Agency
