Tinkoff-Saxo finished off Dubai Tour on a high note. That is the verdict from directeur sportif Nicki Sørensen after stage 4 that saw Michael Valgren win the overall young rider classification, while Manuele Boaro rode his way back into the GC after a great effort in the breakaway. The final 128km stage was won by Mark Cavendish, who also claimed the overall victory.

“The effort from the riders is absolutely approved today. We finished the day with exactly what we had hoped for at the beginning of the stage. Boaro fought his way into the top ten, while Valgren retained his white jersey. I saw a determination and commitment and that’s a great way to end a race”, says Nicki Sørensen, who made the move from rider to sport director ahead of 2015.

“I’m happy to see Valgren win the white jersey on his 23rd birthday and overall I think we did a good teamwork. Dubai Tour is almost a pure sprinter’s race but I believe we’ve done our best to ride our own chance”.

Stage 4 of Dubai Tour from Dubai Marine Club to Burj Khalifa was commenced at a roaring pace and the average speed soared to 47kph during the first hours of racing. Tinkoff-Saxo’s Manuele Boaro once again showed his willingness to attack as he helped form the five-man breakaway of the stage. The group got a maximum advantage of 4 minutes, before the sprinter’s teams started to reel in the front group.

Came down to bonus seconds

However, out front, the five soldiers of fortune battled for bonus seconds in the two intermediate sprints. Boaro proved the fastest on both occasions and gained a total of 6 seconds in the GC taking him from 14th overall to 9th – a result Boaro is pleased with:

“I climbed 5 places in the GC on the last day, so I’m happy with the final result. If you don’t try, you don’t achieve. But I knew it would be difficult because of the wind and the long open roads. But Nicki said to me before the start of the stage that I could make it into the top ten, so I wanted to prove him right”.

Boaro and the rest of the group were caught going under the 10-kilometer marker. The high speed in the peloton meant that Boaro had to hang on tight if he wanted to keep his place in the GC.

“In the very end of the breakaway, I waited a bit for the peloton to arrive. I knew that they would catch us and that I had to cross the line in the same time as the bunch. But I felt good and had the power to keep up”, finishes Manuele Boaro.

Going into the final sprint, Etixx-QuickStep raised the pace and in the lead-out Mark Renshaw, with Cavendish on his wheel, created a gap to the next sprinters. Cavendish took his second stage win in front of Elia Viviani (Team Sky) and Juan Jose Lobato (Movistar).

Today’s stage concludes this year’s edition of Dubai Tour. Tinkoff-Saxo is back in action already tomorrow, Sunday, as the team takes on Tour of Qatar with Peter Sagan making his Tinkoff-Saxo debut.