Luke Plapp was only able to hold on to the UAE Tour leader's jersey for one day, but the Australian's determination and fight for the overall win remained strong.

World champion Remco Evenpole's second-place finish on the summit of Jebel Jais catapulted the Belgian into the overall lead, while also putting him seven seconds ahead of the Ineos Grenadiers rider, who was tied with Plapp in time.

The UAE Tour offers two summit finishes, and after one summit finish, Evenpoel has the advantage at the moment. But as Plapp points out, the fact that there is such a close gap at the top of the GC means that all is still left to be desired.

"When you lose the jersey to the world champion, there's nothing more you can ask for," Plapp told Cycling News just before receiving the points leader's green jersey, which he inherited from his Evenpoel teammate and stage 1 winner Tim Merlier.

"It's still a great day for me and it's all still to come in Jebel Hafeet. I finished in the same group as Lemko and I still have everything left.

He also praised the tremendous efforts of his Ineos Grenadiers teammates on the long road across the deserts of the northern UAE and into the Al Hajar Mountains.

The 21-km climb following the gentle approach road saw few GC attacks, suggesting that Plapp was happy to see the top three overall finishers (himself, Evenpoel, and Pero Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious)) finish together.

"I think all three of us were kind of waiting to see what the UAE would do.

UAE Team Emirates made several attacks with Mikkel Bjarg and Marc Soler at the halfway point, but soon came up empty.

"We were waiting to see what would happen. Nobody wanted to burn too many matches."

Before Jebel Hafit, Plapp predicted that there would not be much fighting over bonus seconds in the next three stages, as the breakaway group was likely to get them.

"But if the sprint continues for three days and there is a showdown at Jebel Hafeet, I won't complain."