{"id":435502,"date":"2026-02-20T04:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/435502\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T04:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:58:12","slug":"preview-uae-tour-2026-stage-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/435502\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview UAE Tour 2026 stage 5"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nProfile stage 5: Dubai Al Manzar Park – Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University\"Profile<\/p>\n

Stage 5:\u00a0Dubai Al Manzar Park – Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, 166 kilometers<\/p>\n

Stage 5 of the race starts in Dubai, heads into the desert and then returns to the city. It’s not the first time the finale is hosted in an university, as the stage is pan-flat, meaning a bunch sprint is unavoidable.<\/p>\n

The finale has no technical features until the riders reach the 1 kilometer to go sign, where they will then take on two right-hand corners which means that positioning and timing will be quite important in this finale.<\/p>\n

The Weather\"Map<\/p>\n

Map of stage 5 of the 2026 UAE Tour<\/p>\n

With the riders in Dubai, echelons are harder to be created as the stage is more urban then others. There is some desert riding, but the wind won’t be very strong and will come from the north, which means a headwind come back to the city and not crosswind action.<\/p>\n

The FavouritesJonathan Milan<\/a> – We can be honest in saying the stage is not going to have more or a different story than today. The peloton did wildly miscalculate on stage 4, they won’t do the same on stage 5; but the outcome will be a bunch sprint and that’s inevitable. Somewhat more technical but nothing special, the riders still won’t have urban features or any climbing whatsoever to throw into the mix. Hence, Jonathan Milan, who is clearly the strongest sprinter in the race, is likely to win – even though bunch sprints are never easy to do perfectly, and any slight mistake can open the doors to the rest of the field.<\/p>\n

Ethan Vernon has shown himself quite strong today and with a good leadout, I think it is fair to mention him as one of the best competitors against the Italian. Casper van Uden, Juan Sebasti\u00e1n Molano and Sam Welsford are the other men who can challenge Milan realistically – although the latter needs an easy stage and finale to be within a shot.<\/p>\n

Albert Dainese, Matteo Malucelli, Erlend Blikra, Stefan de Schuyteneer, Madis Mihkels, Gerben Thijssen, Cees Bol, Robin Froideveaux, Daniel Skerl and today’s surprise third place and winner’s brother Matteo Milan are all outsiders as well for the stage who will be looking for a very important World Tour win.<\/p>\n

Prediction UAE Tour 2026 stage 5:\u00a0<\/p>\n

*** Jonathan Milan
** Ethan Vernon, Juan Sebasti\u00e1n Molano, Sam Weslford
* Casper van Uden, Alberto Dainese, Matteo Milan, Matteo Malucelli, Gerben Thijssen<\/p>\n

Pick: Jonathan Milan<\/p>\n

How: Regular bunch sprint.<\/p>\n

Original: R\u00faben Silva<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Profile stage 5: Dubai Al Manzar Park – Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University Stage 5:\u00a0Dubai Al Manzar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,110189,1009,101,119130,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-435502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-jonathan-milan","tag-preview","tag-sports","tag-uae-tour","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}