David Gourdoux (Gulpama-FDJ) rode with spirit on stage 5 of the UAE Tour, taking his second 4th place finish in 3 days on the summit of Jebel Hafeet. With this result, Gordou remains in fourth place overall, 15 seconds off the podium with two days to go.

The young French climber, who will be Thibaut Pinot's wingman in the mountains at this year's Tour de France, was part of an elite group on the final climb of the stage today.

Adam Yates, Tadei Pogachar, and Alexey Lutsenko tore the race apart, and together with Ilnur Zakarin, this quintet decided the stage. Lutsenko finished second and Yates third.

"That climb was really tough. At the bottom I was racing at full speed, and around 5km Yates and Pogachar attacked one after the other. Pogachar and Yates were clearly the stronger of the two, and Gordou wisely decided that his best bet was to drop Lutsenko and bridge to his other two rivals

."

"I wanted to clear Pogachar and Yates and bridge myself without Lutsenko, but he fit and it was too late."

"I gave it my all in the sprint.

Gordou joined the UAE Tour as FDJ's GC Hope after finishing third last year. He won a stage at the Tour de Romandie last year and was 13th overall at last year's Tour; he also won the Tour de l'Avenir in 2016.

He told Cycling News that he is happy with the UAE Tour so far and has not given up hope of a full podium, but that he and the rest of the team will focus on supporting Arnaud Demaret in the final two sprint stages.

"It's been a good week. Tomorrow it might be windy. I'm looking forward to the last two days. I think it will be hard to get on the podium, but anything can happen. I'm hoping that in the next couple of days, De Mare will win a stage."

After the UAE tour, the FDJ climbers will return home and rest for a while. He has a busy spring ahead as he prepares for the Tour de France, where he will team up with Pinot again; the two often collaborate on races and spent time in Tenerife earlier this year.

"After this we will rest a bit and then return to racing in a few events like Pais Vasco and the Ardennes. After that, I think I'll be at the Dauphiné, the nationals, and then the Tour de France," Gaudoux told Cycling News.

"I'll be at the Tour for Pinot and to help him in the mountains, we went to Tenerife in January, and I'm going to be there for the Tour de France. So I think it's working out well here."