Tour of Oman: Kristoff wins stage 1

Image 1 of 35

Alexander Kristoff (Team UAE Emirate) cruised to victory on stage 1 of the Tour of Oman on Saturday. The Norwegian sprinter took the first leader's jersey of the race as a result. Kristoff came home ahead of French sprinters Bryan Coquard (Vital Concept-B&B Hotels) and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis Solutions Credits). Andre Greipel suffered a late puncture with less than 10km to go, and although he was able to return to the peloton he was unable to break into the top ten.

"It was a tailwind and very fast. It was difficult to come from far behind because it was really stretched out, but it was also hard to time it because you can’t go too early with this tailwind - you need some draft," Kristoff said at the finish.

"Actually, I never took my ass off the saddle, I was seated the whole sprint. It was mostly about leg speed, actually, and I have pretty good leg speed, I trained a bit on it during the winter. When I saw I hit the front with 70 metres to go I was pretty confident, but you never know - someone can suddenly come from behind with speed, but I’m very happy to take the win."

A full quota of 126 riders rolled out from the start as the peloton tackled the 138.5km along the coast to towards the finish at Suhar Corniche. It wasn't long before the attacks started with a four-man move quickly establishing a healthy lead of 4:25 after just 15 kilometres of racing.

Sergio Rodriguez (Euskadi Basque Country-Murias), Michael Schar (CCC Team), Guerin Alexis (Delko Marseille Provence, and Emiel Planckaert (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) saw their advantage drop to 2:55 after 42km of racing, while Alexis raced home to win the first intermediate sprint of the race.

The four leaders battled in the draining conditions but they held a 2:45 gap with 35km to and the faintest hopes of competing for the win. However, with so many strong sprint teams at the race there was little chance of a break deciding the stage. Planckaert was the first to buckle under the strain with 20km to go, leaving the three remaining leaders with just under a minute to play with.

With 10km to go the gap was down to just 15 seconds and further 4km from the line the trio's day was put to an end. There was late drama when Greipel punctured but there would be no denying Kristoff, who now at 31, has won nine stages of the Tour of Oman.

Full Results