Froome wins on Green Mountain

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Chris Froome (Team Sky) claimed victory atop Green Mountain on stage 5 of the Tour of Oman to move into the leader's red jersey and set up overall victory with just Sunday's flat stage to race.

Tejay van Garderen (BMC) finished in second place on the climb, 22 seconds down on Froome but 11 seconds ahead of Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-QuickStep). They also fill second and third overall, at 26 and 31 seconds respectively.

The race in the Persian Gulf is Froome's first of the season as he builds towards the defence of his Tour de France crown but he appears on form and ready to dominate another season of stage races.

After the finish, Froome took a few minutes to spin his legs and recover by riding further up the climb but returned with a smile on his face.

"I was extremely happy, extremely happy to win. We came to this race with a lot less pressure and stress on our shoulders but from a personal perspective I want to see where my condition was and I got the answer I wanted," Froome said to the journalists at the race.

The decisive stage of the six-day race was animated by a four-man break featuring Marco Canola (Bardiani-CSF) John Murphy (UnitedHealthCare), Thomas Sprengers and Preben Van Hecke (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise). The quartet had a lead of 3:30 over the peloton after 100 kilometres of racing, before Team Sky and Omega Pharma-QuickStep took up responsibility for the chase on the run-in to the base of Green Mountain.

The 5.7km climb is the perennial centre-piece of the Tour of Oman. Once on its slopes, after Tinkoff-Saxo overdid it with their initial surge, and Team Sky was quickly to the fore in setting the tempo.

Sergio Henao launched the team's first, probing attack with two kilometres to race, and when he was pegged back by van Garderen and Robert Gesink (Belkin), Froome immediately hammered his way clear and cruised home to victory.

"We took a bit of back seat coming into the climb and only took it up in the last few kilometres. We didn't waste energy on the front," Froome explained.

"Swifty and Danny Pate took us up to the front, then two kilometres up the climb, we regrouped and made our train. David Lopez set a hard pace on the front and did a lot of damage, then Mikel [Nieve] took over.

"Sergio [Henao] put in a well-timed attack and had Gesink and Tejay van Garderen chasing. When they brought them back, it was the perfect moment for to attack. We set out with that plan and it's a really good feeling to see it come as planned."

Froome's impressive display showed he has put in the hard miles during the winter in South Africa. He spun his usual low gear on the climb and appears to have worked on lifting his gaze from his stem to the road ahead.

His performance and dominance must have his rivals worried and left him confident for the races ahead.

"I think I'm in a very similar position to last year. Then I had a lot more pressure on my shoulders to get this result; today I didn't have that pressure. In a way it feels a lot better to have the victory today," Froome said.

"I think winning here is always more psychological that anything else. At this point it's still too far out to say anything in terms of build-up to the Tour de France but it's definitely good to have it in there."

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