Bos blazes to second Oman stage win

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Theo Bos (Rabobank) took his second sprint victory and another huge step forward as a road sprinter at the end of the longest stage of the Tour of Oman in Sur on Thursday.

The former track sprint world champion has formed a successful sprinting combo with Australian teammate Graeme Brown. Bos has the pure finishing speed to win from the front while Brown has the experience to know how to do the dirty work and get Bos through the chaos of the final kilometre.

A strong swirling head and side wind made the sprint in the sparse outskirts of Sur more dangerous than usual but Bos went early on the long, straight finish to beat Daniele Bennati (Leopard Trek) and Matt Goss (HTC-Highroad).

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It was yet another podium placing for Bennati, his sixth in Qatar and Oman, but the Italian still seeks his first victory of the season. Goss kept the red race leader's jersey for another day and leads Bennati by two seconds and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) by 10 seconds after three days of racing.

After celebrating with his arms in the air as he blasted through the finish area, Bos was last back to the Rabobank team car but was congratulated by everyone in the team. He was ecstatic to have won again.

"It was really nice," Bos said with a beaming smile. "I hit the front too early but I just thought I'd go and see what happened. I made it to the finish.

"I stayed calm during the finale and I told the guys that if we got boxed in, we get got boxed in. It was difficult to get to the front and it didn't work that well but then Brownie (Graeme Brown) went with 500 metres to go and I went with three hundred metres."

Bos admitted he needs a clear run to win a sprint so he can open up his natural high-end speed. Despite winning both the sprints he has contested here in Oman, he claimed he still has a lot to learn.

"He (Brown) is a strong sprinter and great in the finale. My problem is that I'm not such a good cyclist but I have a really good sprint," he said.

"I have to improve the cycling point, the climbing and the bunch sprints. But fortunately for me, the team is good at setting up the sprinting part."

While Rabobank celebrated, the other teams were not happy after a long day in the saddle and a 200km drive back to their hotel. Several riders were angry with the way Brown had dragged Bos to the front. But with no television or overhead replays for the judges to consider, the other teams had no evidence of dangerous riding and had to admit it was all part of sprinting.

"The sprint was pretty crazy. Brownie took a few guys out I think and that kind of messed things up a bit," Matt Goss said.

"We were going to go for the stage win with either me or Cavendish. We were both feeling good and he was on my wheel with 800 [metres] to go, but there was a lot of chaos with the wind and I saw Mark wasn't there with 600 to go. I was in the perfect position and so I went myself. Unfortunately most of us got ridden off the road in the last hundred metres or so and Bos and Bennati got a gap on us. But that's racing."

A long day in the sun

The stage was marked by a long breakaway by five riders who got away early as the race traveled south from Sur along the Oman coast.

Patrik Sinkewitz (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli), Marcus Burghardt (BMC), Kevin Claeys (An Post-Sean Kelly), Mark Kumpo (Geox-TMC) and Vitaliy Kondrut (Lampre-ISD) quickly opened a five minute lead and the peloton let them stay clear for most of the day, only sweeping them up in the final 10km.

Strong winds slowed the race along the coast, with riders covering the long empty roads at an average of 35km/h. The speed only increased after the feed zone (at 103km) and when the race headed inland and the wind became more of a help than a hindrance.

HTC-Highroad had to do much of the work with Goss as race leader and that must have affected their chances in the sprint. However, Bos's second win in three days confirmed that Rabobank has created a great sprint duo by combining Graeme Brown's sprinting experience with Theo Bos's finishing speed.

When HTC-Highroad, Garmin-Cervelo and Quick Step field their strongest lead-out trains we should be set for some spectacular sprinting and great rivalries.

Time for the mountain finish

So far the Tour of Oman has seen the sprinters fight for stage victories but the battle for overall victory will come alive on Friday's finish to Jabal al Akhdhar or Green Mountain.

The twisting climb to the line is 5.8km long at an average of 10.3 percent, somewhere between an uphill finish and a true mountain finish. The climb starts steadily but then includes a mid-section at 13.5 percent before a kilometre at 6 percent and then the final two kilometres at 13.5 percent.

It is a real ramp finish which should see climbers like Robert Gesink (Rabobank), Jakob Fuglsang (Leopard Trek) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) emerge to win the stage and take the overall race lead.

For the other riders it will all be about limiting their losses. If strong time trialists like Marco Pinotti (HTC-Highroad), Christian Vande Velde and Cameron Meyer (Garmin-Cervelo), and Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) can stay within 30 seconds of the climbers, they could secure overall success in Saturday's 18.5km rolling time trial.

The 157.5km stage starts at the Sultan Qaboos University on the coast and heads inland and into the mountains.