André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) again proved that he is a solid climber when he survived two tough ascents near the end of the third stage of the Tour of Oman before unleashing his impressive sprint to take his second stage win of the race. The German admitted that he hadn't expected to be in contention in this tough stage and said that the headwind had played a decisive role.

André Greipel seems to be almost unbeatable these days. After taking a convincing win on the opening day of the Tour of Oman, only a dropped chain derailed him the chance to double his tally in yesterday's bunch sprint and today he again stroke when he took his fifth win of the season in a hilly third stage.

On paper, the two climbs inside 25km should make it a tough affair for the sprinters but Greipel was on fire today. On the first of the two ascents, he even personally responded to an attack from Kanstantsin Siutsou (Sky) but on the final climb things were more difficult.

Defending champion Chris Froome eager to play his cards and the Tour champion put in a stinging late attack. He was joined by Peter Sagan, Fabian Cancellara and Zdenek Stybar to form a very strong quartet while Greipel could only hang on for dear life.

However, a fierce headwind saved the day for Greipel who managed to maintain contact with the peloton and then used his teammate Jurgen Van Den Broeck to close down the dangerous quartet. Still with plenty of team support available, Grepel launched his powerful sprint to take a convincing win with several bike lengths.

"It was a hard final on paper today, but the headwind played in my favour," he said. "It was supposed to be a final for Gallopin, Roelandts and Van den Broeck but I could manage to stay in the front of the group and the team motivated me as well. The last 4 kilometres I was riding at the end of the bunch but Roelandts and Bak brought me back to the front. With 700 metres to go I was back at the head of the bunch and Ligthart and Roelandts gave me the perfect lead-out.

"Maybe it looked easy but it was hard to stay with Sagan and the group because they tried to make the race hard," he added. "We were lucky that there was a headwind on the final climbs. I had to hang on there and was pretty far back but my team brought me back to the front. They decided that they wanted to ride for me, even if the finish was more for Roelandts. In the end I still had two guys to lead me out. It was perfect timing to hit the front."

Greipel admits that his form is good and hopes to be able to add to his tally later in the race.

"There haven't been many yet, I hope there are more to come," he said. "I have good legs, I'd accept that but I needed the team to set me up. I win but it's not about me, it's about the team."

With the win, Greipel is back in the leader's jersey but tomorrow's finish contains four tough climbs and so the German sprinter admits that his stint in the lead will be short-lived.

"It's nice to have a leader's jersey," he said. We got it back today but we will lose it tomorrow."

Sports director Bart Leysen was impressed by his sprinter.

"We had taken into account that it might turn out to be a sprint today, because the last twelve kilometers there was a tough headwind," he said. "If you could survive the first climb, it was likely you could do the same on the second and longer climb. The tempo would decrease because of the headwind. Attackers would be fighting against a wall. André Greipel was flying today. He reacted smoothly to the acceleration of Siutsou. The German champion won the sprint and he was more than two bike lengths ahead.

"Tomorrow there will normally be made a big selection for the GC. Tony Gallopin is standing in top 10, he took a bonification second yesterday. The stage will be important for the GC of Tony and that of Jurgen Van den Broeck. In the final the riders have to cover the same climb four times, two times on each side. In the final ascent there will be headwind again, so that will be decisive for the race developments. Saturday only the end is going to be hard with the Green Mountain to climb, which has a gradient of over ten percent. That will be the most important day for GC. Sunday it will probably be another bunch sprint. We have certainly two more chances to win a stage."

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