Bos hits back, Goss still in Red 1

February 17 ^th 2011 - 17:04

For the third stage of the Tour of Oman, the riders were taken by speedboat this morning to the city of Sur, 300kms south of Muscat. After a very enjoyable journey on the Oman Sea, the 126 remaining riders (one non starter, Jeremy Hunt) took off for the longest stage of the event: a 208km loop around Sur, through splendid landscapes. After four kilometres, five riders broke away: Kump (GEO), Sinkewitz (FAR), Burghardt (BMC), Kondrut (LAM) and Claeys (SKT). While the pack didn’t seem to want to react, the front men saw their advantage go from 1’10 at km 6 to a maximum 6’50 at km45. From then on, slowly but surely, under the influence of teams HTC-Highroad and SKY, the gap started dropping. The first intermediate sprint (km 62) was claimed by Kump ahead of Sinkewitz and Kondrut, while the pack remained 5’50 adrift. The gap dropped down to 2’35 at the second bonus sprint (km 130) again won by Kump ahead of Claeys and Sinkewitz. As the Leopard-Trek team intensified the pursuit, there wasn’t much the leaders could hope for, especially with the tailwind blowing. With 25kms to go, the front five could only enjoy a 1’05 advantage and were finally caught at km 198. Heading back to Sur, the pack remained bunched but the wind had changed direction and was to face the riders in the final moments of the race. A winner of stage 1, at Al Seeb, Theo Bos again made the best of the hard work of Rabobank team mate Graeme Brown to conquer the win. The Dutchman beat Daniele Bennati (LEO) and overall leader Matthew Goss (THR) to the line. After struggling in yesterday’s hilly stage, Bos hits back in style and claims the points’ Green Jersey while Goss keeps command of the Red (overall classification) and White (best young rider) jerseys. Pieter Serry (TSV) still leads the most aggressive rider standings.