2nd stage already a lot harder than the opener. Similar first half but the final has some nice surprises. First an easier Cat.3 followed by another more difficult short hill. Just after the descent the finish line is not far and so a well placed attack could change the GC today.
Hard to name a favourite on that stage. Surely all sprinters, that did well yesterday again belong to those, but eventually even the puncheurs, GC riders or a late attacker can take that one.
Only 3 attackers in the breakaway today. Within them the KoM jersey of Gradek, who is in the break once again.
He is joined by Bush and Ghdamsi.
First sprint and Bush takes it. But more interesting to see Gradek taking 4 bonus seconds moving him up the GC as he was already 6th only 14s behind.
100km left and full control by BelarusBank for race leader Hutarovich, who seems confident to be able to pass those hills.
A gap of 4'40 and already going backwards.
A mix of wind and that small bump before the two late hills appeared to be too hard for quite a few riders as a group of ~50 got dropped.
Within those mroe or less the complete Privatbank train with Vanoverschelde, Gomenyuk and Polivoda. Vaitkus though was better placed and is in the front group.
Also in there some other sprinters such as Tolleson, Van Hummel, Bar, Nateghi, Speirs and some climbers with Ortega, Vasquez or Torres.
Surely those mountain goats are not really made for the windy conditions in the desert of Oman. Neither are they made for short but steep climbs.
Let`s have a closer look on the final. Definitely can cause some splits when being ridden fast. The pure sprinters might struggle in the end with the puncheurs taking advantage of it.
Heineken more or less complete in the first group except for their sprinter Tolleson sees a chance to make the race tough and higher the pace for Eastman. So being on the first hill now the breakaway is already within sight.
Gradek takes the 6 points here to higher his KoM account. Bush and Ghdamsi follow behind him.
10km left and now it`s Bacardi for Uran/Aberasturi and Karcher for Kupfernagel/Karpets to improve the pace once more. The breakaway more or less caught.
The sprint though is still for the breakaway and Gradek also takes this one with Bush and Ghdamsi again behind him. A really good day for the Barca - Polska rider.
Right after that though the trio is caught and back in the peloton.
Huge effort by the Privatbank riders as they bring Vanoverschelde and the rest of the dropped riders back into the peloton, which wasn`t too easy as the pace was high.
That said you can see the difficulty of that last wave and being in the back does not look promising in case of sprinting for a win today.
Even worse to see that Karcher`s GC riders Karpets and Sousa really destroy the peloton here by doing the pace. Kupfernagel behind them though in a very good position. Strong performance by all three.
Next to them the Magna duo Cataldo and Simon, who looks like a good bet for that kind of stage as also Uran.
So some GC riders really want to do something here. Bacardi indeed goes for him as Aberasturi wasn`t near the front since the hills started.
Karpets still in front on the top and behind him quite a few gaps. In the end a group of only 15 riders in the first group having perfectly gapped the riders behind. Karcher with a lot of riders in there as they obviously planned that scenario. Brave attempt but in the end it obviously worked. Karpets, Kupfernagel, Sousa, Brandao, Silva Uran Marquez, Waeytens Cataldo, Simon Eastman, Peterson Hutarovich Ji, Hiratsuka
So we have the biggest GC favourites, a puncheur in Simon and two sprinters including race leader Hutarovich and Kupfernagel. 5 Karcher riders!
But we also have some GC riders behind obviously as in especially the South American and African mountain goats have missed the split as also riders like Efimkin, Nerz, Lloret, De La Fuente or Nieve.
Karcher giving everything to avoid a fusion of the two groups and with 5 riders here they keep a high pace and even widen the gap as behind many teams are not interested due to their leader being in front or other teams like Privatbank not longer having the energy to do so.
1,5km to the finish and the gap is at 1'30. So surely the stage winner will come out of this group with the GC eventually being lost for those behind.
Sousa tries to leadout Kupfernagel to a stage win, but actually the German is looking exhausted after the hills. Also Hutarovich only in ~10th position while the GC riders are the riders in the top spots.
Marquez, Sousa, Kupfernagel and Cataldo are the first guys going around the last corner.
With a small gap GC riders Ji and Eastman while all others can`t really follow. Surprising the most are Uran and Simon. But also Hutarovich is struggling a lot.
The order did not really change a lot and so Marquez takes a big win ahead of Cataldo and Sousa!
Kupfernagel as 4th still with a good result seeing that hills. But having 5 riders in here the team surely had hoped for a stage win.
Ji and Eastman as next but also the later riders are within the same time as no real gaps were opened.
GC wise this means, that Hutarovich is rewarded with the leader jersey again after his fight over the hills. But Marquez made a huge step today with the win and is within the same time. Cataldo 8s later while all Uran, Karpets, Ji etc. are 20s behind.
2'03 in the end for the remaining riders. Huge gap for several climbers. But in the end their leaders couldn`t pass the hills as easy as they might have hoped plus Privatbanks earlier trouble disturbed the pace a lot here.
