With an eight place of Alexander Kristoff in the Tour of Oman’s last stage, Katusha’s trip to the Middle East comes to an end. With four victories in Qatar and Oman, it was a extremely successful campaign for Team Katusha. The last stage in Oman was won by Mathias Brändle (IAM Cycling).
"Even if we had already so many victories here, we were still motivated to win this last stage too. We did not panic when that break of four riders got a big gap. With that climb before the final it made no sense to catch them too early. In the last 30 km we started to chase furiously and the gap diminished. However, we were alone in the chasing job. Only Trek helped us a bit. In the end we missed one minute but okay sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In the end we cannot complain about our races in the Middle East. Now we look forward to our first European races with this group," said Team Director Torsten Schmidt.
Brändle won the last stage with 4 seconds advantage over Iljo Keisse (Etixx – Quick-Step), 13 seconds over Jef Van Meirhaeghe (Topsport Vlaanderen) and 16 seconds over Danny Pate (Sky). The group with Kristoff finished at 1.16.
Rafael Valls (Lampre) is the overall winner with Tejay Van Garderen from BMC (+0.09) in second place and Alejandro Valverde from Movistar third (+0.19). Dani Moreno was the best Katusha rider in 14th position (+2.06).
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