Pogacar achieves the first victory of 2025 with an impressive sprint at the UAE Tour

After 2 days of trying, world champion Tadej Pogačar has managed to win the third stage of the UAE Tour. A victory that leaves him leading the general classification with an 18-second advantage over Josh Tarling.

Tadej Pogačar achieves his first victory of 2025 with an impressive sprint at the UAE Tour

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has opened his account of victories in 2025 after imposing himself with authority in the third stage of the UAE Tour.

On the third day of competition, UAE Team Emirates-XRG had a perfect day in their home race. After dominating the stage from the beginning, the team finished with a powerful sprint from Pogacar at the demanding uphill finish in Jebel Jais. The Slovenian once again demonstrated his strength in this type of finishes and even had time to check on two occasions that he had left Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) behind in just a few seconds.

"It feels incredible. Finally, we are back to competing and finally a victory after three days. We are super happy," declared Pogačar after the stage.

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"We had no help at all until the last climb," explained the world champion after a day in which his team led the peloton both on the flat and on the 21 km climb to Jebel Jais. "We executed it really well. The whole team deserves this victory today."

"It's great to win with the rainbow jersey." "Part of me expected Tarling to hold on with the group and keep the jersey, but I will be more than happy to have the leader's jersey tomorrow instead of the rainbow one," he acknowledged.

With this victory, Pogačar becomes the new leader of the general classification in the UAE Tour, surpassing Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) by 18 seconds, who won the individual time trial yesterday.

"Nothing is won yet. Tomorrow will be the halfway point of the race, so there is still more than half to go," he concluded, the one who already knows what it is to win this race 3 times.