Brändle wins final stage of Tour of Oman

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Matthias Brändle (IAM Cycling) soloed to victory on the final stage of the Tour of Oman, beating fellow escapee Iljo Keisse (Etixx-QuickStep). The former Hour Record holder attacked his breakaway companions with three kilometres remaining to win by just four seconds. Jef Van Meirhaeghe (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise) dropped Danny Pate (Team Sky) to take third place and complete his full set of days in the break.

As the four leaders completed the first of three passages through the finish line, they held a commanding lead of almost three minutes. It was almost certain that they would stay away to the finish and from there it was simply a case of playing their cards right.

“It was a little bit like in [the Tour of] Britain: we were strong riders, we worked together and we had to do a bit of a team time trial and keep a good speed,” Brändle said at the finish. “We had to work together in the climbs to make sure that we didn’t push too hard in the climbs and in the end I was lucky that I was the strongest.”

The group stayed together until the final circuit before Pate struck out on the small unclassified climb on the finishing circuit, but Brändle had the gas in the tank to follow his wheel and dropped him. It then became a drag race to the finish with Keisse tracking him down quickly and almost making the catch.

“It was the thing that I was afraid of,” Brändle said of Keisse’s ability in a sprint. “That’s why I attacked him in the last climb because I saw that he was suffering a bit in the climbs. So I thought, don’t take a risk, try to drop him before the final and the percentage of winning will be higher if we go to a sprint.”

The bunch finished more than a minute behind Brändle with Rafael Valls finishing safely inside to seal overall victory. The Lampre-Merida rider had a trouble free day in the peloton to ensure his position at the top of the overall classification with Tejay van Garderen (BMC) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) rounding out the podium.

How it unfolded

After the heavy debate regarding extreme heat that surrounded the cancellation of stage five, the temperature fell almost 20 degrees for a more balmy start to the final day of racing. For the first time this week, grey skies greeted the peloton as they lined up for the start but the wind was still an ever-present menace.

Van Meirhaeghe was at it again almost from the outset, attacking out of the bunch at the nearest opportunity together with Keisse. Brändle was the next to join the duo with Pate completing the quartet after seven kilometres of racing. Jelle Wallays (Topsport-Vlaanderen-Baloise) also tried to jump over to the leaders but didn’t make it. He got as close as six seconds but the difficult crosswinds along the coast proved too much of a challenge and he was caught after plugging on alone for 15 kilometres.

None of the escapees were of any concern to the race leader Valls and his Lampre-Merida team were all too happy to let them go. Despite the short nature of the stage, the gap to the leaders was allowed to soar to nine minutes by the time they’d reached the feed zone after the halfway point.

With the sprint finish they were looking for quickly slipping through their grasp, Cofidis took up the chase, stringing out the peloton and lopping a minute off the leaders’ advantage. However, it was too little too late. The twisting and technical descents off the two classified climbs, which also featured in the finale of stage 2, were too hard for the peloton to mount a significant challenge.

It was the ascent that did it for points jersey wearer Andrea Guardini (Astana) who finished the day in a small gruppetto several minutes down, but in the event, the bunch sprint – won by Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) – was ultimately only for fifth place, as Brändle took the spoils.

Results