February 25.
The UAE Tour reached its final day: [Al Ain–Jebel Hafeet].
As the finale of this event, today's race was undoubtedly the true main event.
Once today's race concluded, the suspense over this edition's overall champion would finally be completely resolved.
This year's UAE Tour was also the year when the GC riders were closest in overall strength. Unlike previous editions, where riders such as Vingegaard and Pogačar competed and practically killed off the suspense several stages in advance.
Judging solely from the stage terrain, Stage 7 was set up almost exactly like Stage 3.
The first hundred-plus kilometers were all flat, with only an extremely difficult summit finish climb at the end.
This stage covered 161 km and still featured two intermediate sprint points, at 63.5 km and 147 km respectively.
The first 150 km were entirely flat, with a slight gradual descent in the middle that was almost negligible.
However, the difference between the two stages lay in the length and gradient of their final mountain climbs. Overall, while Jebel Hafeet on Stage 7 was a full 8 km shorter than Jebel Jais, its average gradient reached 6.7%, making it unquestionably more difficult than Jebel Jais.
It was also worth mentioning that Jebel Hafeet's final kilometer was actually a flat stretch at the summit followed by a gentle descent, which severely lowered the average gradient of the preceding ten kilometers.
In reality, from kilometer 2 through kilometer 10, the gradient of this mountain basically remained above 8%.
The steepest section came between kilometers 5 and 6, where the gradient would reach a terrifying 10.7%.
Before the start, Huang Chong followed his usual habit and first looked over the top ten riders in the overall standings that Chen Junyi had provided him. The gaps between them were incredibly,