Tour of Oman 2014 - Stage 5

The Tour of Oman's queen stage was today, a 147.5 kilometre race from BidBid to the top of Green Mountain. The race's overall classification was likely to be decided today, and it was billed as a likely showdown between Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquim Rodriguez. It was likely that the man standing atop the podium as stage winner today would stand atop the podium as overall race winner tomorrow. 

A five man breakaway did go away on the stage, but the purpose may have been more television time for their sponsors, as winning the stage from a break would have been a very ambitious goal. The break contained John Murphy (UnitedHealthcare), Thomas Sprengers (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Marco Canola (Bardiani-CSF) and Preben Van Hecke (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise). 

The break's lead stretched to about three and a half minutes at its highest, but then Sky and Omega Pharma-Quickstep worked together to bring their lead down and bring them back into the peloton. Once the race was near the final climb, Sky really took control of things, and one by one started using their riders to increase the pace at the front.

After hard work from David Lopez and Mikel Nieve, Sergio Henao put in a probing acceleration, which forced Robert Gesink (Belkin) and Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) to chase. After that Chris Froome launched his one and only decisive attack, which left the rest of the peloton scrambling for his wheel. It was a dominant display by Froome, who went on to win atop Green Mountain.

Next up the mountain was Tejay Van Garderen, twenty two seconds down on Froome, and next was Froome's former teammate Rigoberto Uran, thirty three seconds down on the stage winner. Froome as a result now leads the general classification, which now looks to be his to lose with just one stage remaining. If Froome wins the race, it will be the second year running that Froome has taken the Tour of Oman. Whether he can have the same amount of success in stage races as last year remains to be seen.