Ethan Vernon capped off a good week of racing for NSN Cycling Team at the UAE Tour as he finished fourth in Sunday’s final stage in Abu Dhabi.
Vernon and his teammates executed their strategy through a twisty and flowing approach to the finish line at Abu Dhabi Breakwater, but the British rider was unable to fully unleash his sprint.
“It was a bit of a frustrating end again,” he says. “The boys were really good. They set me up really well, but again I didn’t get a chance to fully sprint, which is frustrating.
“But it has been a consistent week – I think every time we sprinted, we were top 10. I got second, fourth and sixth, so a consistent week.
“The speed is there. We’ve made mistakes but we’ve got a lot of things right also.
A lot of guys here will be also coming to the Giro and it’s a start of learning the train and getting it working for that race.”
Vernon finished second in Thursday’s fourth stage and recorded two more top-10s in the Middle East’s leading race, but DS Alex Cataford believes team cohesion in the Emirates was just as important as the results.
He says: “Our main goal here was to help build our sprint train and build how the guys work together, especially looking forward to future races with this group.”
“I think we made improvements since the start of the week. We worked on ourselves and we found ways to be better and more adhesive, and that’s just going to take us closer to the big results.
“We got a second, a fourth, and a sixth on the sprint stages, which, while we were hoping for that win, we had the objective of a podium and we got that.
“I think, overall, we can take a lot from this race. We learned a lot that we’re going to apply going forward, and that’s very positive.”