Fourth for Marta Lach and Sixth for Mylène de Zoete at UAE Tour Women

A hectic day in the desert saw echelons and sandstorms culminate in a bunch sprint.

With strong winds from the beginning, the peloton was almost immediately split into three groups. Mylène de Zoete made the front group, Marta Lach and Sandra Alonso the second with Nadine Gill, Arianna Fidanza and Laura Asencio's group eventually losing almost 5'00", however, the time gaps fluctuated with each change of wind direction.

After battling the sandstorms for almost 100 km, the first groups combined, bringing de Zoete, Lach and Alonso back together and giving them some time to recover as the pace settled at the front of the race. This in turn allowed the group with Gill, Fidanza and Asencio to obliterate their now 5'00" deficit, with Gill making huge contributions to bring Fidanza back into contention.

The peloton re-grouped with just over 20km remaining, but the relentless pace and brutal winds ensured that didn't last too long. Fidanza, Lach and de Zoete worked together to stay in position near the front of the bunch, entering the final corner in a near-perfect position. Lach narrowly missed out on the podium, the de Zoete sixth and Fidanza finishing just outside the top 10.

Marta Lach enjoyed the first windy test of the season: "Immediately from the start we had echelons, and I was super excited because the first race like this of the season is always BIG fun. When the group split, luckily we had Mylène in the front and we know she's really strong so we were okay. In the headwind, it all came back together so the girls from behind came back and we didn't lose too much time on GC. Then when the wind changed again the battle really started. We were in a really good position together with Mylène and Ari, on the right side just behind SDWorx. We worked really well as a team and the result has given us a lot of motivation for the next stages. I want to say a big thank you to the team for believing in me, especially after a hard race like this".