February 25th.
The UAE Tour, a stop on the cycling World Tour, reached its final day of competition: the Al Ain-Jebel Hafeet Mountain stage.
As the final showdown of this year's event, today's race was undoubtedly the main event.
By the end of the day, the suspense over who would be this year's overall champion would be completely resolved.
This year's UAE Tour was also the one where the GC Cyclists were most closely matched in skill. It wasn't like previous years, where the participation of riders like Vingegaard and Pogačar had essentially killed the suspense several stages in advance.
In terms of terrain, the setup for Stage 7 was almost a carbon copy of Stage 3.
The first hundred-plus kilometers were all long, flat roads, with only the finish featuring an incredibly difficult summit climb.
This stage was 161 km long and still featured two intermediate sprint points, at the 63.5 km and 147 km marks, respectively.
