‘I’m a reporter… get me out of here’: UAE Tour hotel lock-down re-enactment

The last time I was at Yas Island Plaza in Abu Dhabi, I boarded a minibus designed for locked escape pods.

Three years later, I’m back on the UAE Tour for the first time since the infamous blockade in 2020.

Seeing the Crowne Plaza tower nestled among mid-range hotels overlooking Abu Dhabi’s racecourse this weekend brought up hazy memories and icy chills.

The first tendrils of COVID hung over the pre-pandemic world — including the UAE — in a veil of apprehensive, chaotic fear.

The UAE race was shut down overnight after the virus bubble burst as race organizers scrambled to find a solution for the world’s new circumstances.

Most of the WorldTour brigade, and dozens of hapless media types, locked away in stuffy Crown Plaza hotel rooms, served door-to-door sandwiches by agency workers who scurry through the emptiness unseen corridor.

Under the watchful eye of the RCS and the Giro d’Italia don Mauro Vegni, we carried out the COVID tests in the “field hospital” in the basement of the makeshift hotel.

After 72-plus hours in a room of lifeless stars, with the agonizing appearance of a sunny beach outside the window, emotions hover between bewilderment, bewilderment, fear, and disgust.

After a few tries, we were eventually released in what felt like an evacuation mission, strapping us from a crowded hall as local officials erupted in frustration and armed guards oversaw our maneuvers.

We were lucky enough to have an “early” release.

Four of the world’s leading teams – Taddj Pogachar and his fellow UAE players – were quarantined and spent several days on another floor of the hotel.

Whether it was intentions, budget or a nod to superstition, the media team was exempt from returning to the Crowne Plaza for the fifth edition of the UAE Tour.

However, we were opposite a similar soulless business leisure hotel about 100m from the front door of the Crown Hotel.

Whenever I see its gleaming glass lobby and palm-lined facade, memories spring back to me.

But thankfully, the winter of 2020’s obsessive handwashing, mandatory mask wearing, and foreboding are all gone. I’m spanning each number and knocking all the wood, hoping it stays that way.