Last year's UAE Tour was cancelled after five days due to a confirmed coronavirus infection during the race. The entire race caravan was placed under house arrest in a hotel in Abu Dhabi and the four teams were placed in quarantine for an extended period of time before being allowed to leave the country.
The event announced Thursday that it will introduce "strict COVID-19 protocols to ensure the safety of all athletes, staff, and officials" for the 2021 event.
The race, which was added to the World Tour calendar in 2019 following the merger of the Dubai Tour and Abu Dhabi Tour, will be held for the third time. Run in conjunction with RCS Sport, the organizer of the Giro d'Italia, the race was won by Primoš Roglic in 2019 and by Adam Yates last year.
This year's UAE Tour will be the first race of the 2021 World Tour after the Santos Tour Down Under was cancelled due to a coronavirus outbreak. Other races earlier in the season were also cancelled.
In Australia, the Bay Critz, Great Ocean Race, and Herald Sun Tour were canceled, as was the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina. In Spain, Challenge Mallorca has been postponed until May, and the organizers of the Vuelta a Murcia are also considering this move. The Dutch cyclo-cross championships were also cancelled.
The January cancellations and postponements mean that most riders in the World Tour peloton plan to begin the 2021 season in Europe, with the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and Etoile de Besseges (both February 3-7) the first stage races on the calendar.
Tour de France winner Tadey Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates) is expected to race in Valencia before moving on to the UAE Tour, but race organizers have said that details of the riders will be announced "in the coming weeks."
Pogacar and the entire UAE Team Emirates team attended a training camp in the United Arab Emirates last week, where riders and staff were vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine.
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