Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) won stage 3 of the Tour of Oman, scoring his second victory of the season atop the summit finish of Eastern Mountain to take over the race lead.
The Swiss champion was among a select group of climbers at the head of the race on the closing climb, chasing down late attacker Nairo Quintana (Movistar) with 300 metres to go before striking out for the line.
Schmid held off Cristian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) to take the win, while Martin Tjøtta (Uno-X Mobility) finished in third place, three seconds back.
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The remains of the day's breakaway, including previous race leader Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché), had held on until just 2.2km to go after a crash in the peloton held up progress behind.
But once the leaders were caught, it was all up to the climbers, who hit the front and established a select lead group on the way up the 3.5km, 7.6% climb to the line.
Quintana made the biggest move off the front, attacking solo at 2km to go. The Colombian was searching for his first victory in four years and opened up a small lead over an ever-reducing chase group.
It wasn't to be for Quintana, however. He made it into the final kilometre, but held onto a lead of just a handful of seconds. With 300 metres to go, the work of Schmid's teammate Paul Double on the front made the difference, dragging Quintana back and setting up the Swiss racer to surge for the 11th win of his career.
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How it unfolded
The third stage of the race brought the toughest challenge yet, with a 3.5km closing climb to Eastern Mountain at the conclusion of a 191.3km run from the Al Fayhaa Resthouse at Samail. The peloton would have to contend with 1,600 metres of elevation along the way, though no classified climbs before the finish.
119 riders finished stage 2 on Sunday, but four wouldn't make the start of stage 3, with Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), Josh Kench (Groupama-FDJ United), Marcos Freire (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and Alberto Bettiol (XDS-Astana) all leaving the race.
Of the 115 who did head out from Samail, plenty of the racers sought to attack from the start, with attacks flying as the flag dropped. There wouldn't be a definitive break for some time, though, after 10km, there was a split in the peloton with 30 riders going off the front.
That move eventually birthed the breakaway. UAE Team Emirates-XRG worked to bring the split back, eventually doing so after 34km of racing. In the meantime, seven riders had jumped off the front to form the day's breakaway.
Race leader Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché) was in the move, with the Frenchman joined out front by Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ United), Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost), Jonas Hvideberg (Uno-X Mobility), and Stanisław Aniołkowski (Cofidis).
That group of seven settled out front as several teams, including UAE and Soudal-QuickStep, worked at the head of the peloton behind.
The breakaway raced off to a maximum advantage of four minutes in the middle of the stage, while Veistroffer led the race over the intermediate sprint at Al Alya to extend his points classification lead with 22 points to Juan Sebastián Molano's 15.
After passing the 90km to go marker, the speed in the peloton picked up, so gradually bringing the gap to the breakaway down as the final neared. At 42km to go, the break lost its first rider as Pacher dropped back. Shortly afterwards, Veistroffer added another three points to his points lead, once again ahead of Oliveira and Baudin.
Heading into the final 30km, the break's lead hit the minute marker, and the peloton looked well on course to make the catch and contest the final among themselves. That gap had halved heading into the last 10km of the race, but a crash in the peloton on a roundabout with 6.5km to go slowed the progress behind.
At the start of the final ascent, the breakaway held onto a 20-second gap, which wouldn't be enough to survive and contest the stage win.
2025 race runner-up Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep) wouldn't battle for the victory either; the Frenchman was unfortunate to suffer a mechanical at 2.5km to go, which ruled him out of contention.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Veistroffer and Aniołkowski were the next to drop from the break shortly afterwards, while the remains of the break were swallowed up at 2.2km to go. Quintana, meanwhile, was the first rider to make a major move from the peloton.
The Colombian struck out with 2km to go, building a small lead and hanging onto it as the group behind him lost more and more riders as the gradient bit.
He battled on with a small lead heading under the flamme rouge of the final kilometre, but it wasn't to be for the 36-year-old. Work from Jayco-AlUla in the 10-man lead group saw Quintana brought back, with Paul Double putting in a shift on the front for Mauro Schmid.
In the end, it was the Swiss rider who prevailed, leading from the front into the final push for the line. He and Cristian Scaroni - who had won on his 2026 debut at the Classica Camp de Morvedre – were both going for their second win of the year. However, the Italian couldn't get off Schmid's wheel, and so it was Schmid who raised his arms to celebrate at the finish.
Dani Ostanek is Senior News Writer at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor, later being hired full-time. Her favourite races include Strade Bianche, the Tour de France Femmes, Paris-Roubaix, and Tro-Bro Léon.
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