cycling: Abu Dhabi Tour Stage #1: Cavendish beats Greipel - Kittel with late crash

Cycling: Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) celebrated his first win of the season on the first stage of the Abu Dhabi Tour. The Brit beat André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) and Niccolo Bonifazio (Bahrain-Merida) in a chaotic final. Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) was involved in a late crash, as was Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott), finishing battered and knocked out.

Exciting finale after a rather less interesting day of racing in Abu Dhabi - that's probably the best way to sum up the start of this year's Abu Dhabi Tour. The riders managed the largely flat 189km to the finish, as was to be expected before the start: A few kilometers after the starting signal, a trio of breakaways opened up a gap and the field allowed them to do so at the beginning.

So the action drifted along a bit until things got exciting again in the final kilometers. The breakaway riders had been caught when the first crash sent the first riders crashing unceremoniously to the asphalt – one of them was Alberto Contador, who, however, remained uninjured. Nerves grew with every kilometer approaching the sprint finale, and so it was not too surprising that before the 1.000m mark the next crash occurred: This time it affected significantly more riders, including the two favorites Marcel Kittel and Caleb Ewan.

Dimension Data's platoon had somehow managed to maneuver themselves and Captain Cavendish through the chaos unharmed, but Niccolo Bonifazio and André Greipel were also very well positioned. The sprint was started by the Italian, but Cavendish was waiting on his rear wheel for the right moment to attack. When the Brit finally pulled out of the slipstream, he was able to easily overtake the Italian. For his part, Greipel tried everything to sprint out of Cavendish's slipstream to victory, but was defeated by his great island rival today. Marcel Kittel rolled to the finish with some distance, abrasions and a pained face.

Final result Abi Dhabi Tour 2017 Stage #1