A well-timed long charge for the line has narrowly netted Uno-X Mobility racer Erlend Blikra the bunch sprint victory in stage 4 of the Tour of Oman.
Second in a tumultuous bunch sprint was Pinarello-Q36.5's Emmanuel Houcou, whose sustained surge up the right of the finishing was not quite enough to keep Blikra claiming his biggest win since a stage of the Tour of Langkawi four years back. Stage 1 winner Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was third.
After a two-rider break was caught late on, Alpecin-Premier Tech led the bunch into the closing kilometre, but their control on the front crumbled as the finishing straight, leaving numerous sprinters with options for victory.
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With the largely uneventful pancake-flat stage between Al Sawadi Beach and Sahar coming down to a bunch sprint, Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) remains in the top spot overall prior to Wednesday's final crunch stage, with his four-second GC advantage over Christian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) still intact.
"It was a bit as expected, we were maybe hoping for some more crosswinds, but the direction [of the race] was not perfect for that, so it was quite easy," said the Norwegian stage winner.
"Then in the final, we knew it'd be hectic because of the corners, so we needed to start early in the front."
"Also, with the wind coming in from behind, I knew I'd be better being on the left side, and I managed to win."
How it unfolded
Running mainly close to the coastline of Oman in a northerly direction, the biggest risk to the race's second bunch sprint on stage 4 were crosswinds. However, these failed to materialise, meaning the only other faint hope of preventing a mass dash for the line was a long-distance breakaway.
Warre Vangheluwe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Patryk Goszczurny – one of just three Visma-Lease a Bike riders left after teammates Bart Lemmen failed to start because of crash injuries and Sepp Kuss pulled out sick earlier on – duly stepped up to the grid, moving ahead in the opening 20 kilometres.
Meanwhile in the pack, race leader Schmid tried to snatch the remaining time bonus left in the first sprint of the day at Al Suwayq at km 40. But instead Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) outpowered the Swiss national champion for third behind the break, thereby ensuring the final second on offer did not further stretch out Schmid's lead prior to Wednesday's showdown on Jebel Al Akhdhar.
The two riders ahead ground onwards on the flat, broad road running parallel to the coastline, with Goszczurny, already wearing the gold jersey of 'Most Active Rider' after two breaks, likely to further boost his hold on that ranking thanks to his third day out of four off the front.
Their advantage, though, only ever rose to just over two minutes at most as Jayco AlUla kept a tight control on the second half of the stage, and by the time they reached the second sprint of the day, at Saham and temperatures had soared to a balmy 29C, the two still only had slightly north of a minute in hand.
Soudal-QuickStep themselves lent Jayco AlUla a hand to the process of chasing down the two riders ahead, and with Uno-X Mobility also giving some assistance, their margin began to tumble rapidly. At 10 kilometres to go, despite Goszczurny and Vangheluwe's best efforts, there were only 25 seconds left in hand.
The broad three-lane, well-surfaced highway was marginally bendier on the relentlessly flat final run-in, helping the two ahead a little, but their options were shrinking ever more quickly as Uno-X took over fuller responsibilities for the chase, and with just under three kilometres to go, they were finally caught.
Alpecin-Premier Tech then led into the series of broad corners into the finishing straight and were still present in numbers when the sprint began to unfold, Uno-X were ready to strike.
"We went early," Blikra told Omani Sports TV later. "We didn't want to be first, but we wanted to be right behind Alpecin and that worked out well. When I crossed the line I was quite sure I'd won – it was initially close, but the gap got bigger at the end."
The GC battle now comes down to the final, traditionally decisive summit finish at Jebel Al Akhdhar, the only classified climb on Wednesday's 156-kilometre stage. As a double defending champion and a previous winner of the 5.5 kilometre ascent with its average gradient a leg-burning 9.9% back in 2024, all eyes will be on Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and whether the Briton can pull back his current 32-second disadvantage on Schmid.
But with nearly 20 riders at less than a minute on GC, and Schmid himself a very talented climber as he showed on stage 3's summit finish, the outcome is far from clear.
"I'm excited, for sure it won't be easy," Schmid, already the winner of stage 3 and the Muscat Classic this week, said to Omani Sports TV after stage 4, "but I have nothing to lose."
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