The Abu Dhabi Tour held its pre-race press conference on Wednesday and such is the depth of talent in the field for the new WorldTour race, two banks of tables were needed to accommodate those considered the 14 'top riders'. As Mark Cavendish, sat dead central, put it: "You don’t even see this in Grand Tours anymore."
General classification favourites for this year’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France are hardly in short supply, but Cavendish is part of an equally stellar sprint cast that includes Marcel Kittel, Andre Greipel, Caleb Ewan and Elia Viviani.
“This is probably the best sprinting field I’ve raced in since turning pro,” said Ewan, now in his third season as a professional. Greipel added: “It’s never easy to win sprints, and when you have the sprinters that we have here it doesn’t make it any easier.”
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Three of the four stages at the Abu Dhabi Tour are dedicated to the fast men. Thursday's opening stage takes place in the desert and is followed by a similarly flat course in the city the next day. The final stage will once again take place under the floodlights on the Formula 1 circuit, where Cavendish won last year and Viviani the year before.
And it’s those two riders who are perhaps most in need of a victory this week, as the sprint field is divided between those who are yet to win this season and those who’ve already got the ball rolling.
“I’ve already got four second places and I hope that doesn’t continue,” said a less-than-relaxed Viviani, who has come up against a Quick-Step shaped wall so far this season, losing out to Fernando Gaviria twice and Boonen once in San Juan before being beaten by Kittel at the Dubai Tour.
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