For Tadej, things are falling into place at the UAE Tour. In the 2nd stage, a 12.2 km long flat time trial, he took 3rd place, only beaten by specialists in this discipline, Joshua Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) and Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale). Tarling flew across the course with a time of 12:55 and an average speed of 56.671 km/h, while Tadej, with an average speed of 55.385 km/h, was 18 seconds behind him. In doing so, he left all the most dangerous competitors for the overall victory behind him, Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) was 21 seconds behind him, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl Trek) 24, Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) 25, and last year’s UAE Tour winner Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto) 28 seconds.
»First real effort of the year, bit longer effort, first proper all-out. I’m happy, it was a pretty fast time-trial and I’m happy with the speed and the legs. Of course I blew the legs, that’s the whole point of an all-out effort. It was a good day, but it’s always going to be tough to compete against Tarling and Bissegger because they’re really good in this kind of course,« said Tadej, who also ranks 3rd in the overall standings after the time trial, 18 seconds behind leader Tarling and 5 behind Bissegger.
It seems that the red jersey is already within Tadej’s reach, as the 3rd stage will feature a 21.1-kilometer summit finish (5.4% average gradient) on Jebel Jais, where he already won in 2022. »Tomorrow is a very nice stage for me in Jebel Jais, good memories, one time I won there and as I say always it’s a day for sprint of the climbers. Always there’s a sprint between climbers and it’s funny to see, a good experience. There can be surprises, I’m really looking forward to it because it suits me very well,« Tadej hinted that perhaps the time has come for the first victory of the 2025 season.