Thursday 23 February 2017 15:04, UK
Mark Cavendish claimed his first win of the season with victory on stage one of the Abu Dhabi Tour after race favourite Marcel Kittel crashed.
The 31-year-old Manxman triumphed in a sprint finish at the end of the 188km route, which started and ended in Madinat Zayed after crossing the desert.
Team Dimension Data rider Cavendish finished ahead of Germany's Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) and Italy's Niccolo Bonifazio (Bahrain-Merida).
With time bonuses, Cavendish leads Greipel by four seconds overall.
Kittel fell on the final kilometre stretch just before the sprint with the Quick-Step Floors rider eventually finishing three minutes behind the winner.
"I can't fault anyone in the team. If I'd lost it would have been only my fault," Cavendish told the Abu Dhabi Tour official website.
"It was the same finish as last year and I was only third then, with us having made some mistakes. We went through what we did wrong last year, tried to do the complete opposite and that's what happened."
Friday's second stage covers 153km at Al Maryah Island.
