Sam Bennett underlines world class speed with podium finish in Oman bunch finish finale

Only the really big guns of Andre Greipel and Nacer Bouhanni were faster than Sam Bennett in the charge to the line on the final stage of the Tour of Oman today; with the photo finish above showing Bennett is not too far from either.

By Gerard Cromwell

Ireland's Sam Bennett moved another step closer to a first victory for the NetApp Endura team today when he finished third on the final stage of the Tour of Oman.

The result is Bennett's first podium finish since moving from An Post-Chainreaction up to Pro Continental level.

He took a 5th place in a bunch finish at the Tour of Qatar the week before last and also claimed the young riders classification jersey after cleverly taking a time bonus during stage 1.

He followed that up this week by getting into the top 10 a number of times, though today's 3rd place is a significantly better result.

It will serve to underline his team's belief in him and their willingness to grant him protected rider status.

And after putting some of the fastest men in the world in the shade today, it appears just weeks into his new contract, the faster racing with lead out trains at this level are suiting him better than the chaotic finishes that often characterised the races he rode with An Post-Chainreaction.

It was a productive day for the Irish with Nicolas Roche and Wicklow-born teammate Chris Juul Jensen also featuring strongly on the stage.

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Roche was part of an early five man escape which went clear just 17km into the 146km stage.

Alongside Gavazzi (AST), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), Niki Terpstra (OPQ) and Pim Ligthart (LTB) this quintet reached the top of the first climb of the day (Al Jissah, km 29), with a 1'35 advantage over the pack but they were reeled in just before the first intermediate sprint of the day at Al Amerat after 60km.

Michael Hepburn (Orica-GreenEdge), Alessandro Bazzana (UnitedHealthCare) and Jensen then went clear on the climb of Bousher Alamrat at the midpoint of the stage and despite a stiff headwind on the run in, the trio were only caught in the final kilometre when the sprint started.

Here, Andre Greipel of Lotto Belisol took his third stage of the race with FDJ’s French sprinter NacerBouhanni edging out Bennett for second place.

Stage one winner Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and last year’s Tour de France stage winner Michael Morkov (Tinkoff Saxo) rounded out the top five.

The race was won for a second year by Sky’s Chris Froome, with Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) second and Rigoberto Uran (OPQS) third.

While Bennett is unsure of his next races, Roche will ride Italian one-day races Strade Bianchi on 8th of March.

More later.

Feb 18th to 23rd, Tour of Oman (UCI 2.HC)

Sun, Feb 23rd - Stage 6: As Sifah to Matrah Corniche 146.5km