Tour of Oman: Valls wins on Green Mountain

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Rafael Valls (Lampre-Merida) took a surprising victory on the queen stage of the Tour of Oman. The Spaniard dropped Tejay van Garderen (BMC) in the final 100 metre to win atop Green Mountain and move into the overall race lead. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) fought back to take third place ahead of Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) after an aggressive race on the big climb of the race
 
"I am really surprised to take victory ahead of such good climbers," Valls said at the finish."It will be very complicated (to win overall) but we are ready to attack. It will be hard but I will give my maximum."
 
After a very slow start to the day, BMC drove the pace hard as they brought the peloton to the bottom of the climb. The numbers in the front group quickly fell as the road got steeper. Nearer the top, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) lit the touch paper, attacking twice on the climb before being dropped. The Italian was looking to set-up his teammate Jakob Fuglsang who began the day in a much better position in the overall classification. Race favorite Valverde was dropped by the group but would fight back in sight of the finish.

Van Garderen forced the pace, leaving just Valls and Majka with the American. With a kilometre remaining, the group was reduced further as Majka lost contact, as Valls and van Garderen continued to trade blows. But the Lampre-Merida rider had the edge to take one of the biggest wins of his career.

Valls now leads the overall classification by nine seconds on van Garderen, while Valverde slips to third overall. MTN-Qhubeka's Louis Meintjes held on to take eighth in the stage and move into the young rider's classification jersey.
 
How it happened

Due to the early start and tough parcours, stage four was always going to be a long and tough day for the riders. The weather also made things tough. The ever present heat was beating down on the riders outside the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, with the addition of a gusting wind making things much harder. After at the start, the peloton rolled out 10 minutes behind schedule.
 
An attack from the bunch in the opening metres of the race again included Jef Van Meirhaeghe (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise). The Belgian is now four for four in terms of breakaway escapes and looks set to take the most aggressive rider classification. Along with his teammate Van Meirhaeghe were Gijs Van Hoecke, Stijn Vandenbergh (Etixx-QuickStep) and points classification leader Andrea Guardini (Astana).
 
The wind continued to gust as the peloton rode out into the countryside, blowing sand at the riders, and so the peloton was happy to let the four attackers go. Unsurprisingly, Guardini won the first intermediate sprint at 18 kilometres with Van Meirhaeghe taking second. Happy to have increased the lead in their own respective classifications, the pair sat up and settled back into the peloton.
 
Vandenbergh and Van Hoecke pushed on alone and their gap ballooned from around five minutes to over 14. Already behind schedule, the group were certainly taking it easy, setting an average speed of 28kph in the second hour of racing. It was not an easy ride as the teams battled to keep safe and echelons formed. Trek Factory Racing spread across the front of the peloton, with Movistar, Tinkoff-Saxo and Team Sky sending up to join them.
 
As the race approached the final, decisive climb up Green Mountain, BMC moved to the front, gradually bring bringing down the gap to the two leaders. With 25km to go the gap but still hovered around 3:50. Eventually the pair would get caught at the foot of the climb. The American team continued to push hard up the early, steep part of the climb and race leader Fabian Cancellara was dropped. 

Attacks caused a serious selection and then an attack from Nibali whittled the group down even more. Ben Hermans was the last of the BMC riders to peel off, leaving van Garderen to finish it off the team's strategy. However Valls surprised him to take the biggest win of his career.

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