It was a very good performance by Diego Ulissi in the very interesting 3rd stage of the Abu Dhabi Tour. The queen state of the first edition of the Arabian race ended with the summit finish at Jebel Hafeet.

The burning sun and the demanding climb revealed the good condition of Diego Ulissi, who succeeded in gauging his effort in the first and most demanding part of the ascent, and later setting a pace which allowed him to overtake some of the riders who had tried to attack earlier on.

Ulissi reached the finish in 4th position, 31 seconds behind the winner Chaves whose success was possible only thanks to a crash in the last bend of Poels, who was the leader of the stage in that moment.

Chaves is the leader of the overall classification, Ulissi is 5th at 41 seconds.

"The climb was long and demanding, the weather so hot: the priority was to have a pace which could allow me to limit the loss to the pure climber,” Diego Ulissi said. “I'm satisfied, I succeeded in beatmany cyclists who usually are more competitive on the climbs.

“It's unusual to race such kind of stages in such unusual landscape: I think the riders made a good show".