UAE Tour 2024 Stage 7

February 25, 2024 Cross winds split the field to pieces on the way to Jebel Hafeet. The sky was orange and sand had been blown across the road but the field stitched itself together with 37KM remaining. There was a four rider break consisting of Silvan Dillier and Jonas Rickaert of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Mark Stewart of Corratec-Vini Fantini, Emanuel Buchmann of Bora-Hansgrohe. They got up to eight minutes but that was slashed when the winds kicked up. Jayco-Alula put the race back in the gutter with 25KM to go causing a mini split but that came together again quite quickly. On Jebel Hafeet, Decathlon-AG2R set a hard pace for Ben O'Connor, dropping Brandon McNulty and race leader Jay Vine of UAE. Many riders lost their teammates on the climb and with 4KM to go, riders started to attack one after another. Michael Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling got a gap, Lennert Van Eetvelt of Lotto-Dstny and Ilan Van Wilder of Soudal Quickstep were able to bridge across. At 1.8KM to go. Van Eetvelt attacked the two other just as the road flattened and immediately got space. The chasing riders came back to Van Wilde and Storer but no one would catch Van Eetvelt. The gap was big enough for him to take enough time on O'Connor to take the overall, which is a huge success for second division Lotto-Dstny as they seek promotion to World Tour.