Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) proved his sprinting prowess by winning the first stage of the UAE Tour after a sprint group of pro cycling heavyweights collided on the road to the Dubai Silicon Oasis.

With all but Elia Viviani absent from the start list, which included Caleb Yuan, Mark Cavendish, Fernando Gaviria, Sam Bennett, and Dylan Groenewegen, it was the first sprint win of the World Tour season. However, Ewan finished second, while Gaviria and Cavendish finished the race outside the top 10.

For Ackermann, this was his second win of the season, following his victory in Almeria last weekend. The win will have given him confidence, but he knows full well that if the road flattens out on stage 4, he will be expected to win here again.

Later in the year, Ackermann will be looking for his second consecutive sprint at the Giro d'Italia, and his decision not to compete in the Tour de France for the first time in 2020 may come as a surprise given his continued development, but as he walked to his victory press conference in the UAE he He explained to Cycling News.

"I want to win the most races of the year and I want to win as many as possible. In this year's Tour de France, there are only three possible sprints. So we thought as a team that if we go to the Giro and the Vuelta, there will be 10 to 15 sprint possibilities. So we are going to try to do that this year. With Emmanuel Buchmann, it's better for me to go to the Giro and the Vuelta," he explained.

Ackermann will head to the Giro d'Italia with teammate Peter Sagan. Peter Sagan will make his debut in this race after spending most of his career chasing victories in the now defunct Tour of California.

Ackermann and Sagan may both finish fast, but they are very different types of sprinters: both have enormous power, but Ackermann is far more destructive in a straight line drag race. Sagan, on the other hand, is better on the climbs than his German teammate, and for Ackermann, having Sagan on the Giro team is nothing but a bonus.

"There are two chances in the Giro with me and Peter. Having two options on the team is always good for us. I'm looking forward to the Giro," he told Cycling News.

"We have the same goal, we want to win together. We raced together last year. We are good friends and we can work together."

"We are good friends and we can work together.

Here in the UAE Tour, the German sprinter was nearly perfect in the race to the line. While some of his rivals were surrounded or had to fight from behind, he timed his sprint to perfection in a chaotic finale. Ackermann had an element of luck in that the road opened up, but he still had to make the most of the moment and hold off a fast finishing Ewan.

"It's never easy to do a good sprint, but I could see the gap and I had the speed. I think I surprised the other sprinters. I think with this result we can say we were right," Ackermann said at the press conference.

"I didn't look at the other sprinters because I didn't know who was in shape. We tried different things with the others and it worked out well today."