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Remco Evenepoel almost in UAE Tour lead as Soudal Quick-Step win stage two team time trial

Today’s UAE Tour stage saw a team time trial of 17.3km around the roads of Khalifa Port. Soudal Quick-Step won the stage by just a single second over EF Education-EasyPost. The time gap to Ineos Grenadiers now sees Remco Evenepoel now joint on time with Luke Plapp. However, Plapp’s highest placing on yesterday’s stage keeps him in the leader’s jersey. For Soudal Quick-Step, it’s a second tight victory after the narrowest of wins by Tim Merlier yesterday.

The team time trial course was straight on wide roads with just 2 u-turns providing the technical aspects. A strong wind as well, although not as bad as the one on the opening stage.

“We didn’t expect to go under the time of EF. We were mainly focused on the other GC guys, Plapp and [Pello] Bilbao, to do better than them. To be able to win this stage is very incredible I think we executed our plan perfectly. We wanted to stay all together until we got out of the headwind, and then some guys really took our all their energy to do one last pull. 

To win it with one second is pretty crazy. I think it’s my first ever TTT victory and to do it in this race, back-to-back victories for our team, it’s a perfect start.”

Remco Evenepoel

2023 UAE Tour Stage 2 result

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