Wednesday 30 / October / 2024
Muscat: It was all Astana on show as Miguel Angel Lopez powered to victory in the fifth and penultimate stage of the Tour of Oman between Samail and Jabal Al Akhdhar on Saturday.
In the 152km stage, Astana Pro Team put on a show in the queen stage of the Tour, with Miguel Angel Lopez claiming victory atop Jabal Al Akhdhar after a strong collective outing.
Angel Lopez’s teammate Alexey Lutsenko finished second to take the leader’s jersey from the Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet of BMC Racing Team.
The Kazakh team only has one more stage to face en route to the overall victory in the 2018 Tour of Oman.
At the start from Samail, a 6km battle led to a six-man breakaway with Marco Marcato of UAE Team Emirates, Benjamin Declercq of Sport-Vlaanderen Baloise, Pim Ligthart of Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij, Nicholas Schultz of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and Robin Carpenter and Adam De Vos of Rally Cycling.
Their lead rose to 4’20” at km 22 and Vincenzo Nibali’s Bahrain-Merida decided to control the pace en route to Jabal Al Akhdhar (Green Mountain).
Astana Pro Team, Team Dimension Data and Fortuneo-Samsic worked with Bahrain-Merida. But the attackers pushed hard and enjoyed a 5’15” lead as the race entered the last 50 kms.
The gap was down to 1’50” when they tackled Green Mountain (5.7km, 10.5%). Robin Carpenter was then able to hold off the pack until three kms to go.
Astana immediately set a hard pace in the climb, so much that only Gorka Izagirre of Bahrain-Merida was able to follow Miguel Angel Lopez, Alexey Lutsenko and Jan Hirt with 2.5km to go.
‘Superman’ Lopez then took over and led Alexey Lutsenko to the overall lead while claiming victory for himself. Jesus Herrada of Cofidis, Solutions credits finished third, 12” behind the Astana duo.
BMC Racing Team’s Greg Van Avermaet won the third stage on Thursday and Astana’s Magnus Cort Nielsen took the top honours in the fourth stage on Friday. The final stage of the Tour will be a 135.5km affair between Almouj Muscat to Muttrah Corniche.
