UAE Tour 2026 Stage 4

February 19, 2026 The sprinters have been patient. They have tried at Liwa Palace, time trialed on Al Hudayriyat Island, and hauled their thick legs up Jebel Mobrah just to get to Stage 4. Fujairah hosts the start and finish of the stage, along the Gulf of Oman and on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from where we have been so far. This is not a classic, out into the desert and back, kind of stage. After leaving Fujairah, the riders climb up 8KM at an average of 4% to a plateau in the Al Hajar Mountains that they stay on until 28KM to go. The majority of the day rolls up and down and, by the end, the peloton will have accumulated almost 2,400M of elevation gain. With 25KM to go, they descend back into Fujairah for what will certainly be a full bunch sprint. The attacks went straight away and the start was much more active than in previous days. A group of five got away on the climb out of Fujairah including Georg Steinhauser of EF-Education EasyPost, Stephan De Bod of Modern Adventure, James Knox of Picnic-PostNL, Lorenzo Milesi of Movistar, and Patrick Gamper of Jayco AlUla. They built a lead of around 2 minutes 30 seconds and with 74KM to go, they still had a 2 minute advantage on the peloton who were being led by Lidl-Trek, Bahrain Victorious, and Ineos. The gap got down to 90 seconds but, as Gamper led through the second intermediate sprint with 48KM to go, they increased the pace and added 45 seconds to their lead. Lidl-Trek added a man to the chase but the gap wasn't moving. At 35KM to go, Knox had dropped out of the break and Milesi wasn't working but the gap was still 2 minutes 10 seconds. Uno-X Mobility, Soudal Quickstep, and NSN Cycling all got involved in the chase which strung the peloton out in single file with a few hundred meters separating the first and last rider in the line. 10KM later at the start of the descent back into Fujairah, the gap was down to 1 minute. Milesi went back into the rotation in the break but it felt too little too late. The late afternoon cast long shadows of the riders as they entered the streets of Fujairah. With 5KM remaining, the gap was 25 seconds but coming down fast with organized lead outs taking shape behind. There was still 8 seconds between the break and the peloton under 1KM to go. Ineos, XDS-Astana, and Alpecin-Premier Tech were in full flight and caught the break with 250M to go. Matteo Malucelli of XDS-Astana found himself boxed in by Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek who was pushing in from Malucelli's right side which didn't allow him to open his sprint. Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek picked his way through the final lead out riders and powered in his familiar bobbing style to victory. Ethan Vernon of NSN Cycling followed the Italian across the line for second with Jonathan Milan's little brother, Matteo Milan of Groupama-FDJ United, behind in third.