Taylor Phinney (BMC) did appear to be troubled at all despite the numerous attacks that were launched on the final climbs of today's queen stage of the Dubai Tour. Saying that he felt very strong on the ascents, he describes the final stage as ceremonial and is confident that he will take his first big stage race win.

With one day to go BMC Racing Team's Taylor Phinney remains overall leader by 15 seconds over his teammate Steve Cummings. He remains in the leader's jersey after finishing 11th in the penultimate stage of the Dubai Tour.

For the second day in a row Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) won the bunch sprint ahead of Juan Jose Lobato Del Valle (Movistar Team).

After the longest stage (162-km) of the Dubai Tour, Phinney was very grateful to his team.

"Today was a hard stage, the hardest stage of the race.  My team did an amazing job of controlling it," he said. "Klaas Lodewyck, Sebastian Lander, Rick Zabel they were in control the entire day."

At the end of the race Phinney said was feeling strong:

"I did my best to follow the moves, to follow the guys that I needed to follow and I felt really strong. I'm very happy to cross the line safely and still having the jersey at the end of the day."

"It was a beautiful stage today, the hardest of the race," he added. "I think on TV it must have been beautiful. Hatta is beautiful, the roads were very good, and the climbs were pretty steep and hard.  My team did an amazing job: Lodewyck, Lander and Zabel held the 6 breakaway riders close enough to catch them before the climbs.

"Then, in the last 10 kms the best in the world were attacking, one after the other: Sagan, Tony Martin, Rui Costa. I was right up there and following wheels and keeping things together. I had Thor Hushovd taking care of me. Yannick Eijssen and Steve Cummings did a great job on the final climbs.

"It's cool when you see Rui Costa, the World Champion, dangling off the front: you know it's a big race. I'm very happy with that team today, and very happy to finish the stage and still be wearing the leader' jersey."
 

Phinney still faces one test tomorrow but the final stage is a flat circuit race in downtown Dubai. The race leader doesn't expect the stage to pose any threat.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow," he said. "Tomorrow is pretty straightforward a town circuit around downtown Dubai. A shorter stage, we'll try to take control. I know the sprinters teams will want to sprint, so I'll just try to stay safe." 

Phinney has never won a major stage race before and is now on the verge of a small breakthrough in this kind of races.

"I knew from when this race came out that I would have a really good chance of winning," he said. "It's only a 2.1 but with the amount of competition that's here, if I'm able to pull this off tomorrow and if we do it as a team and take that trophy home, I'll be very happy."

Phinney is also the leader in the points and young riders' competitions but he is only concerned with the overall win.

"There's pretty much one jersey that I care about, which is the overall classification, and the young rider's jersey will come along naturally," he said. "We go into tomorrow knowing that nothing is given. It's not over yet, but it's looking good. Cycling's very unpredictable and you never know what can happen in front of you, but something pretty drastic would have to happen tomorrow…".

In the overall standings, Phinney leads his teammate Stephen Cummings by 15 seconds, with Lasse Norman Hansen (Garmin Sharp) in third 17 seconds behind.

BMC Racing Team Sports Director Max Sciandri was happy with the way the team controlled the race after six riders (Evan Huffman, Ruslan Karimov, Diogo Nunes, Valter Pereira, Alexandr Pliuschin and Willem Jakobus Smit) attacked earlier in the stage. The group of six enjoyed a lead of more than six minutes before being pulled back.

"The guys did really well, they controlled it," Sciandri said. "Especially the younger guys Rick (Zabel), Sebastian (Lander) and Klaas (Lodewyck), they worked really well. And Steve (Cummings) did a good job closing it down here at the end.Taylor was super on the climbs. Everybody did what they had to do."

Saturday is the last stage (123-km) in the city center of Dubai with the finish in front of the tallest skyscraper in the world, the Burj Khalifa.

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