Rafael Valls (Lampre-Merida) has won the fourth stage of the Tour of Oman on Green Mountain and taken overall lead in the race.
A 189km stage from Sultan Qaboos Grande Mosque to Jabal Al Akhdhar "Green Mountain" saw the peloton without the ill Tim Declercq, watch Andrea Guardini in the Green jersey, Jef Van Meirhaeghe, Gijs Van Hoecke and Vandenberg attack as soon as the flag was dropped.
They had taken a lead of 4.15 by the time of the first sprint after 18.5kms which was won by Guardini ahead of Van Meirhaeghe, who both dropped back to the peloton, leaving Gijs Van Hoecke and Stijn Vandenberg with a lead of 5.15 after 23kms.
With a hundred kilometres to go, Gijs Van Hoecke and Stijn Vandenberg had a lead of 14.45 but the peloton got their attack together and that slowly dropped to 6.10 with 72kms left.
After Dario Cataldo of Astana abandoned, the gap really started to reduce as the riders headed for the Green Mountain climb and was down to 3.45 with twenty kilometres left.
Stijn Vandenberg took the second sprint after 178kms but just before Vandenberg and Van Hoecke got to Green Mountain they were caught.
BMC now led the way with Alejandro Valverde, Arredondo and Vincenzo Nibali, the 2014 Tour De France winner following whilst race leader Fabian Cancellera struggled to keep with this group.
Nibali attacked but was quickly shut down by a BMC led group of twenty riders.
Herman was pacing Tejay van Van Garderen who attacked but Majka, Allejandro Valverde and Rui Costa were with the American rider from BMC as was Rafael Valls (Lampre-Merida) who got away to take the victory which was his second as a professional, five seconds ahead of Van Garderen and ninteen seconds ahead of Valverde.
The victory means that Vails now is in the leaders red jersey going into stage five with a three second lead over Valverde and nine seconds over Van Garderen.
Source: DSG
