Coquard wins stage 1 of the Tour of Oman

Bryan Coquard (Vital Concept) delivered a fine sprint to win stage 1 of the Tour of Oman in a bunch finish ahead of Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) at Sultan Qaboos University.

"I'm very happy to win in Oman, because it's my first big race of the season," Coquard said. "It's a new team, a new project and my first win - the second win of the team for the season. It's very good, I'm very happy."

Coquard has endured a trying 2018 since switching from Direct Energie to Jerome Pineau's start-up squad during the off-season. Before the Frenchman had even turned a pedal in anger in his new colours, he learned that Vital Concept had been overlooked for wildcard invitations to the Tour de France and Paris-Nice, and he then fell maddeningly short of victory during his first two outings at the Sharjah Tour and Etoile de Bessèges.

On the eve of the Tour of Oman, however, Coquard was bullish about his prospects and the quality of his teammates, and such optimism seemed justified on the evidence of stage 1. Ably assisted by a lead-out train where Kris Boeckmans and Kevin Reza featured prominently, Coquard made no mistake in the finishing straight, out-pacing Cavendish, Nizzolo and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) to claim his first win of the year and the second of Vital Concept's short existence to date.

Timing was of the essence in the finishing straight, where the fast men had to battle into a headwind, and Coquard chose his moment well to emerge a clear winner ahead of Cavendish and Nizzolo.

"It was a very good lead-out. We have a lot of good riders for the lead-out and for the sprint in Oman. It's very good. I don't know, with maybe 3km, my team was on the front, and after it was a very good sprint," Coquard said.

Nizzolo admitted that he mis-timed his effort after his team also put in a good deal of work in the final kilometers. “The team worked hard for me and brought me in perfect position with 1.2km to go, where I found a good wheel to go to the finish. I started my sprint maybe a little too early with the headwind,” the Trek-Segafredo rider said.

After a carnival of sprinting at last week's Dubai Tour, the Tour of Oman offers more rugged terrain in the days ahead, but there was still a strong complement of sprinters on hand here, with Adam Blythe (6th), Alexander Kristoff (7th) and Magnus Cort (9th) all battling to make an impact in a fiercely-contested finale.

How it unfolded

The flat opening leg of the Tour of Oman always lent itself to the fast men, and competition to enter the day's early break was not as ferocious as one might expect later in the week. The irrepressible Conor Dunne (Aqua Blue Sport), however, was willing to tilt against the windmill, and he went on the offensive almost as soon as the flag dropped, and was joined by Maxime Farazijn (Sport Vlaanderen - Baloise), Pierre Luc Perichon (Fortuneo-Samsic) and Brian van Goethem (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) off the front of the race.

The peloton was happy to let this quartet go clear, and Dunne, Farazijn, Perichon and Van Goethem quickly established an advantage of 4:30 over the bunch by the time they reached the 15km mark.

At that point, Bouhanni's Cofidis team and the Sunweb squad of Max Walscheid massed on the front and set about keeping acceptable limits on the dimension of the break's early buffer. By the time Perichon led the break through the sprint after 30km, the gap was down to 3:30, and it stood firm at around that mark for the next two hours or so of racing.

With 50km to go, the sprinters' teams began to wind up the pace in the main peloton, and the advantage accrued by Dunne, Farazijn, Perichon and Van Goethem began to dissolve accordingly. Perichon claimed the second intermediate sprint with 30km remaining but by that point, the gap was barely a minute.

It dropped ineluctably on the run-in, and 11km from Perichon was the first of the escapees to resign himself to the inevitable, sitting up and dropping back into the peloton. Dunne, Farazijn and Van Goethem lasted a little longer, but they too were reeled in with 8 kilometres remaining.

From there, a bunch sprint was inevitable. Cofidis, Sunweb, Quick-Step Floors and Dimension Data were all prominent in the breathless closing kilometres, but victory – and the leader's red jersey – fell to Bryan Coquard.

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