“Should be an interesting start to the day; wonder who gets to drive the speedboat”

McCann (centre in black and yellow) working on his tan in Oman

David McCann has made a good start to the Tour of Oman, finishing comfortably in the bunch on today’s opening stage as German André Greipel galloped in for his fourth win of the new season.

McCann told stickybottle after today’s opening 159km pan flat stage that he feels good after his season-opening Tour of Qatar last week.

“Today was another fast tailwind stage,” he said.

“We did just under 100miles in 3hours 20; pan flat so inevitably a bunch sprint. The drive back took almost as long as the stage; the traffic was insane. I didn't really picture Muscat as a thriving metropolis but it’s actually a pretty busy big city especially when driving across it at rush hour. There’s a couple of small hills in tomorrow’s stage (140km), so hopefully I can start to stretch my legs a little bit.”

He said he used the past few days to simply keep ticking over ahead of this week’s assignment.

“The day after Qatar I was into the hotel weights room for some strength and muscle balance work. Then we had a long travel day getting to Oman in the small hours of Sunday morning. I’ve had two days of just light riding here to freshen up a little.”

“The race book for tomorrow has everyone departing by speedboat to the start at 9am. It should be a pretty interesting start to the day; I wonder who gets to drive.”

General Classification

1 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Belisol Team 3:25:59
2 Denis Galimzyanov (Rus) Katusha Team 4 secs
3 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Barracuda 6 secs
4 Alexandre Lemair (Fra) Bridgestone Anchor 8 secs
5 Mikhail Ignatyev (Rus) Katusha Team 9 secs
6 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Project 1t4i 10 secs

42 David McCann (Irl) RTS Racing Team 13 seconds