Fabian Cancellara (Trek) had played down expectations for today's time trial in the Dubai Tour but still had a good ride to finish 5th. The Swiss described the short stage as being extremely painful and was not too concerned with the result.

Prior to the Dubai Tour, Fabian Cancellara had been keen to stress that he had lost three weeks of training due to illness and a training crash. This had put him in a somewhat unusual situation far down the list of favourites for the opening time trial.

As expected, he was not able to beat eventual winner Taylor Phinney (BMC) but he still did a solid ride to take 5th. Being less concerned with the outcome, he was pleased with his very painful effort.

“It's probably the biggest pain I will get from the whole week," he said. "A 10 kilometer TT for an opening – with no [previous] feelings, no condition - I have experience but to start the season like this, is very difficult. During the race I lost my SRM connection, no heart rate, no indication, so I don’t have the overview at the end of the day.

"But I am okay with that, for me the result is not what counts, and there is not much you can even take out of 10K.  I am still missing three weeks of training from being sick and the crash I had a few weeks ago.”

Trek Factory Racing’s Bob Jungels had a respectable showing just missing the top twenty with a time of 12’48”. 

“To start with a time trial is always really hard because you never went really deep before and to goà bloc for 10 kilometers is not the nicest way to start,” agreed Bob Jungels. “I am happy with my performance; I had a good preparation coming here. Now the main goal is to work for Giacomo (Nizzolo), and maybe on the third stage, with the hills, that can be good for me.”

Teammate Kristof Vandewalle echoed both Cancellara and Jungels in that it was a difficult way to start the new season, but overall was satisfied with his performance in the opening time trial.

“I did not really have an intensive training coming here, I just put in the hours, and that made it a hard start," he said. "It was good to open up the body. I knew I was not going to get a big result here, I was not ready for it, but if I see my [power] numbers of this time trial I must be happy.”

Tomorrow's stage two, dubbed a sprinter's stage, will be a relatively short and fast affair at 122-kilometers in length, beginning in Dubai and ending in Palm Jumeirah.

Starting at 10.45 CET, you can follow tomorrow's windy stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live. You can read our stage preview here.