Chris Froome (Sky) confirmed the impression he had given on the first climbs of the Tour of Oman when he won today's queen stage to the top of the Green Mountain. The Brit arrived solo at the finish, holding off Tejay van Garderen (BMC) and Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), to take the overall lead away from Peter Sagan (Cannondale) with just one flat stage to go.

 

Chris Froome is in pole position to defend last year's win in the Tour of Oman and continue his dominance of the stage racing scene after he took the win in today's queen stage of the race in the Middle East. On the final climb to the Tour of Oman, he launched one of his trademark accelerations and as no one could respond, the Brit arrived solo at the finish.

 

In the past two stages, Froome had given the impression that he was the strongest rider in the race by launching hard attacks on the shorter climbs that had dominated the early days of racing. Hence, all eyes were on the Tour de France champion on the famous Green Mountain where he had finished 2nd behind Joaquim Rodriguez one year earlier

 

The Brit did nothing to hide his ambitions when he asked his teammates to up the pace in the pursuit of the early four-rider breakaway and when it all came down to the final climb, he paid back the favour. He held off Tejay van Garderen and Rigoberto Uran to take his first and Sky's second win of the year.

 

As it has always been the case for the Green Mountain stage, not a lot of information came out from the race and this year it was again hard to find out what was happening on the final climb. The only information available at the time of publication was the top 3 from the stage, leaving us no chance to give a detailed account of what was happening on the final climb.

 

With the stage win, Froome also takes hold of the leader's jersey and barring disaster he will take the win for the second year in a row. Tomorrow's final stage has a lumpy profile but as the final part is mostly flat and ends with on a circuit at the Muscat Corniche, a big bunch sprint is expected.

 

The queen stage

After yesterday's appetizer on the Bousher Alamrat climb, it was time for the race's queen stage on the penultimate day. The 147.5km from Bidbid to the top of the Green Mountain had a mostly flat profile which, however, was just the warm-up for the big final on the race's landmark climb and the highest mountain in Oman. The 5.7km Green Mountain had an average gradient of 10.5% and was expected to be the scene of a big showdown that would determine the overall winner of the race.

 

The riders took off under bright sunshine and beautiful weather conditions and as everybody knew that this was a day for the race favourites, there was no big battle to get into the day's break. John Murphy (UnitedHealthCare) was the first to take off and at the 9km mark he was joined by the Marco Canola (Bardiani) and the Topsport Vlaanderen duo of Thomas Sprengers and Preben Van Hecke.

 

The break opens a gap

The peloton was content with the composition of the break and after 10km, the gap had already grown to 1.05, meaning that the day's break had been formed. As it had been the case for most of the stages, it was entirely made up of riders from Bardiani, Topsport, and UnitedHealthCare.

 

The four riders worked well together to build up a 2.55 gap at the 25km mark when the Cannondale team of race leader Peter Sagan started to control proceedings. They allowed the gap to reach a maximum of just 3.40 at the 38km mark and from there they kept the gap stable at around 3.30 for most of the stage.

 

Van Hecke scores points

Van Hecke had started the day second in the most aggressive riders' competition, 2 points behind his teammate Jelle Wallays, and he was intent on making sure that the jersey stayed within the team. At the first intermediate sprint after 50km of racing, he beat his teammate Sprengers and Murphy into the minor positions to take over the lead in the competition. At this point the gap was 3.30.

 

After 100km of racing, Cannondale got some help from Katusha who were keen to see Joaquim Rodriguez repeat last year's win on the Green Mountain but they were not riding full gas yet. 25km from the finish, the gap was still 3.13 but now things started to heat up.

 

Sky and Omega Pharma-Quick Step lead the chase

Yesterday Chris Froome and Rigoberto Uran had seemed to be the strongest on the final climb and so Sky and Omega Pharma-Quick Step came to the fore to up the pace. With 20km to go, they had the gap down to 2.18.

 

Van Hecke accomplished his mission as he won the final intermediate sprint 11.5km from the finish. At that point, the gap was down to just 1 minute and when they passed the 10km to go banner, the escapees were only 38 seconds ahead, with the fight for position in the peloton now having commenced in earnest.

 

The break was swallowed up in time for the drama on the Green Mountain to start and all was set for a showdown between the best climbers in the world. Froome emerged as the strongest as he held off van Garderen and Uran to become the new leader of the race.