The United Arab Emirates stunned the professional cycling world Sunday as a Team Emirates rider won the overall award at France’s premier stage race. The team’s victory arrives only three years after it secured funding from UAE-based sponsors. Their investment joins a string of recent Middle East sponsorships and points to cycling’s gradually growing popularity among the region’s businesses.

This year, a record three of the 22 teams that competed in the Tour de France were from the region (UAE, Bahrain and Israel). And coincidentally, all three of those countries signed normalization agreements last week at the White House. 

But behind the backdrop of entertainment appeal, sports such as cycling are often used as a canvas by the region’s leaders to exercise soft power, boosting a company or country’s profile by staging lavish large-scale events. 

“Even in the Emirates, the sport of reference for the elite is not golf but cycling,” former UAE Team Emirates general manager Giuseppe Saronni told La Gazzetta dello Sport right after the team was announced in late 2016. “Those with a certain level and a certain social position have a top-of-the-range bicycle.”