Marcel Kittel’s love affair with the UAE continued as he won his first-ever Abu Dhabi Tour stage in a dramatic photo finish.

The giant German used all of his 6 ft 2 in frame to come from the back of the peloton to edge Stage 2 on the line by half a wheel from Orica Scott’s Caleb Ewan and Team Dimension Data’s Mark Cavendish, whose third-place helped him retain the red leaders and the green General Classification jerseys.

It was a calamitous end to the race for Australian rookie Ewan, 22, who thrust his arms skywards at the finish line at Abu Dhabi’s Al Marina thinking he’d done enough for victory.

But replays confirmed he had done so prematurely, with 28-year-old Kittel triumphing by the most slender of margins.

Kittel felt bad for opponent Ewan but said it proves you can never lose focus.

“I guess I just beat him on the line and it shows you have to sprint right to the line and it gave me the opportunity to use those extra centimeters,” he said.

“I think it’s a mistake that all sprinters have made, and I’m sure it will never happen again to Caleb.”

Victory was the perfect response from Kittel, who had crashed 1km from the finish on Thursday’s opening stage in Madinat Zayed following a touching of wheels, while his broken disc brake rotor had caused serious injury to Team Sky’s Owain Doull.

Things were looking bleak again Friday as Kittel was even at the back of the field around 20km from the finish after picking up a puncture.

It was yet more proof of him being talked up as the best sprinter in the world right now, while it also extended his Emirates’ legacy after winning a second successive Dubai Tour last month.

Despite his troubles early on, at no point did Kittel think he could not win.

“I think that is something that happened already a few weeks ago in Dubai on the last stage,” said the Arnstadt native.

“I can say that I’m very happy but I still believed until the last moment that I could come from the back today. Even from there (being at the back with a puncture) I still had my team around me and I didn’t want to give up, I tried my best and I still believed that I could win.”

Six riders lad the day’s breakaway early on, with Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF), Fabio Calabria (Novo Nordisk), Marco Canola (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Alessandro de Marchi (BMC Racing), Kristijan Durasek (UAE Team Emirates) and Kirill Sveshnikov (Gazprom-RusVelo) leading until the peloton reeled De Marchi in with five kilometres remaining.

Canola’s starring role in the breakaway gave him leadership of the Intermediate Sprints competition and the right to wear the black jersey on today’s “queen stage” to Jebel Hafeet.

Stage 1 winner Cavendish defended his leadership in the overall General Classification and the Manx Missile also had some comforting words for Ewan.

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“In all honesty, without taking anything away from Marcel, Caleb was the strongest today,” said the 31-year-old.

“I really couldn’t match him. I knew when we turned right I was a bit too far forward and it was going to be a hard sprint then because there was some headwind.

“Whether it was down to tactics or no fault of his own, Marcel ended up behind and with his strength he’s going to come flying out and that’s what he did there. But Caleb, I went to pass him and I couldn’t.

“I don’t think I’ve lost a race by celebrating too early since I was a junior. I did it once at the junior tour of Ireland. But I’ve won a couple of races because of that.

“That’s part of it and at the end of the day Marcel was real fast and not everyone is going to come that fast. It’s hard on Caleb but it wasn’t like he was celebrating 20 metres out.​”