Tour of Oman: Early breakaway survivor Baptiste Veistroffer holds off charging peloton to seal first pro victory on stage 2

France's Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto Intermarché) claimed his first victory as a professional on stage 2 of the Tour of Oman, attacking from the early break on the penultimate climb with 10km to go and holding off the bunch all the way to the line.

Veistroffer had been part of the early five-man move that went away at the start of the stage, which became three into the finale, and he then attacked over the top of the Al Hamriyah climb to go solo, never to be caught.

His break companions Patryk Goszczurny (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tim Marsman (Alpecin-Premier Tech) were swept up by the peloton, with second and third going to Henok Mulubrhan (XDS Astana) and Thibaud Gruel (Groupama-FDJ United) from the bunch.

Winning by 17 seconds and with overnight leader Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) dropped in the hilly finale, Veistroffer also takes the race lead, going into the third stage 25 seconds ahead of Mulubrhan on GC.

"I just believed in myself from the start to the finish," Veistroffer said post-stage. "Every kilometre, every second, I just believed I could do it. I also remembered every day I spent suffering, in the bunch or in the break alone, at the back, at the front, in training, and I just believed and decided to take my chance."

How it unfolded

Stage 2 offered up a punchier, hillier day than the sprint-friendly opener, with an uphill finale in the Yitti Hills and four categorised climbs across the long 191km stage.

Early on, on the flat, a five-rider break got away, made up of Veistroffer, Marsman, Said Alrahbi (Oman), Gil Gelders (Soudal-QuickStep) and Patryk Goszczurny, who was also in the day's break on stage 1, and sat third overall thanks to bonus seconds picked up then.

The break led as a five for almost 100 kilometres, building up a gap of close to four minutes, but as they entered the tougher second half of the stage, five became three as Alrahbi and Gelders were the first to be dropped, still some 95km from the finish.

In the peloton, it was UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Jayco AlUla who were controlling things, and over the next 40km they gradually ate into the break's lead, bringing it down to two minutes, though it swelled again over the next climb

With 35km to go, the leaders had an advantage of two minutes, whilst behind overnight race leader Molano was struggling with the climbs and had been dropped from the reduced peloton.

Though the climbs were meant to be the biggest hurdle in the finale, that didn't stop the wind from getting involved, and some crosswinds and sandy gusts made for a very strung out bunch as they tried to chase down the leaders, who were impressively holding a two-minute gap with 25km to go.

Despite the best efforts from UAE, Soudal and Jayco in the bunch, the leaders still had a gap of 1:15 going into the final 15km, but with two climbs still to go, it was a tough challenge to hold on.

On the short, steep Al Hamriyah climb, the attacks started in the peloton, led by Paul Double (Jayco AlUla) and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and whilst no one got away, the accelerations strung out the bunch and started reducing the gap to the break.

Over the top, however, Veistroffer managed to pull away from his breakaway companions who were clearly tiring, but the Frenchman had a second wind and soon pulled out a solid lead. There were still 10km left to race, and his gap was coming down constantly as the peloton charged on, sweeping up Marsman and Goszczurny, but Veistroffer held on up Yitti Hill.

On the finishing straight, the speeding peloton was in sight behind Veistroffer, but he had enough of a gap to win, claiming his first pro victory after a long day out front.

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