Chris Froome extends Tour of Oman lead with win in fifth stage

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Chris Froome

Britain's Chris Froome has extended his overall lead of the Tour of Oman by winning the fifth stage.

The Team Sky rider now leads by 27 seconds going into Saturday's final stage and is on the verge of winning his first major stage race.

Froome took the 144km Muscat to Boshar race in a sprint finish ahead of Alberto Contador of Spain, who moves into second overall.

Australia's Cadel Evans fell back into third place, 39 seconds behind Froome.

Froome, 27, was previously runner-up in the 2011 Vuelta a Espana and the 2012 Tour de France but is now in a strong position to improve on those finishes.

On Friday, the Nairobi-born rider responded to Contador's attacks on the second and third of three climbs to finish half a wheel ahead of the two-time Tour de France winner on the line, with Joaquim Rodriguez just behind in third place.

"The team tried to keep things together as well as they could and coming towards the final two climbs Saxo Bank and our rivals lit up the race and made it very hard," Froome told Team Sky's websiteexternal-link.

"That left me isolated with Richie Porte to look after me. He did a fantastic job, taking me up to the final climb where I was able to cover the moves from Contador.

"It was a really exciting finish coming down to a sprint between me, Alberto and Rodriguez. Luckily I just managed to get the better of them on the line.

"Hopefully the sprinters' teams will take advantage of the flatter profile [on Saturday's final stage] and it should end in a sprint if all goes to plan. I've extended my lead to 27 seconds so it puts us in a good place going into the stage."

Saturday's sixth and final stage is a largely flat 144km race that finishes with three laps of a circular circuit in Muscat.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez's Katusha team will be able to compete on the elite World Tour in 2013 after they succeeded in their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to overturn the rejection of their original application.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) had rejected their application to compete in the top flight because of the Russian team's doping record over the past four years.

Tour of Oman - overall standings after stage five:

1 Christopher Froome (GB) - Sky Procycling, 20:04:13"

2 Alberto Contador (Spa) - Team Saxo-Tinkoff, @27"

3 Cadel Evans (Aus) - BMC Racing, @39"

4 Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) - Katusha, @50"

5 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) - AG2R, @1'13""

6 Johann Tschop (SUI) - IAM Cycling, @1'13"

7 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) - Astana, @1'19"

8 Kenny Elissonde (Fra) - FDJ, @1'34"

9 Dominico Pozzovivo (Ita) - AG2R, @1'44"

10 Maxime Bouet (Fra) - AG2R, @2'00"

Selected others:

68 Bradley Wiggins (GB) - Sky Procycling, @18'46"

70 Peter Kennaugh (GB) Sky Procycling, @19'02"

96 Russell Downing (GB) - Team NetApp-Endura, @27:18"

103 Erick Rowsell (GB) Team NetApp-Endura, @28'09"

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46 comments

  • If you think football is clean you are the biggest dope on this blog. Just do correlation of footballers collapsed or died with heart problems against the average or another low money sport say squash.

    The reason the footballers get away with it is that they have better doctors and better lawyers. Why is it that NONE of the football clients of Dr. Fuentes on trial in Madrid are outed? Doh!

  • Not even going to acknowledge the comment below me.
    Back to the topic related to the article, congratulations to Chris.

    He went all the way with Contador, Cadel Evans and Nibali. He is proving his incredible year last year was not just a one off. Good luck for the rest of the tour and the big one coming up later in the year. Would be great to have back to back British winners of TDF!

  • Froome really has this year at his feet. Strong start to the season showing he really can mix it with the top boys (just as last year). With this team behind him, he should go far.

  • Never mind doping in football... great to hear a sky coach after the TdF talking about football...... "it was on his wrong foot"..... well go and train 6 hours a day with the "wrong foot" until is is as good as the other.... Any one who is not involved has no comprehension of the effort of professional cyclists

  • Umpteenth. Predictable twaddle again. Cycling does more than any other sport to get it's dopers out and are not afraid of the negative publicity despite giving the ignorant a platform to slag our beautiful sport off. Wonder how people who support other sports will react when they realize just how far behind us they are.

    Contador has done his time, whether you agree on the sanctions or not.

  • Just been reading other comments and drugs are an issue in ALL endurance sports pro/ama alike. Blood is the only way to sample. I work in drugs field, my needle exchange is mainly frequented by body builders!

  • @umpteenth
    There were over 200 different individuals blood bag at Fuentes' clinic. We know who the cycling ones are. the riders have been pursued, found out and banned.
    Who do the other other blood bags belong to? Why when football and tennis were offered access to Fuentes' files to see if cheats could be identified the lawyers of those sports said "please go away and never speak of this again"

  • @umpteenth the biggest sporting corruptions are the ones we don't hear about, where government power and multi billion dollar sports industries silence the truth of Puerto to keep the Galacticos squeeky clean :) There is no testing for blood doping in football, there is no biological passport in football, urine samples are subject to the most basic of tests. no testing = no catching the cheats.

  • Awesome job from Sky, a couple of their new signings, and Froomey. Going to be an exciting year. 2 Grand tours on the mantelpiece by July?

  • Froome 1 Contador 0 but its a long, long way to Paris!

  • Wiggins got caught up behind the crash and ended up in a second group which finished with a slower classified time. Good to see a Brit at the front though!

    @1 - you succeeded in getting a reaction or two to your idiotic comment. Perhaps you should get along to a cycling club and go out on a 50+mile ride with a group doing half the speed these guys do, then you'll know how 'easy' it is!

  • Froome and Team Sky start building up winning momentum now for the Giro and TDF

  • Great win for Froome and puts a marker down. Not really an indicator of what will happen in the TdF but it's a one-up on Contador and will give him something to think about.
    Froome will be no slouch on the climbs and will give El Pistolero a run for his money.
    Mind you, twice in a day up Alpe D'Huez will be brutal and could be where the Tour is won and lost!
    All the same, great start to 2013.

  • We have established there was a doping problem in cycling. Maybe it is time for all the fools who consistently comment on it to move on.

    Good start for Froome, lets hope he isnt peaking to early if he carrying British hopes of Tour de France

  • Shame I can't watch! Fingers crossed for Froome, first tour win will set him up well for 2013.

  • It's going to be a fascinating season, with team skys pleasing dilemma and throw contador, schleck, evans (can't help but think he's a spent force at 30 odd), nibali.

    After wiggo elevating our sport only for lance Armstrong to tarnish it, I think that this year the sport can only get bigger now that we know for sure that all the riders are clean and washing our hands of the doping for good.

  • Football clean? Football is a very sad "sport" that competes with F1 to be the greediest, waste of money and rip off to the public in all of sport. Only the stupid follow football.

  • Chris Froome is a class act.

    If you've never heard the story of how he made it from Kenya to European Pro racing, do look it up. It's utterly brilliant. If anything can trump the wonderful story of how a lad from Kilburn became TdF champion, Chris Froome winning the greatest bike race in the world would be an amazing story.

  • Will Froome be first African to win a major tour?

  • @26 I agree. Its going to be fascinating to see how it pans out with Wiggo focussed on the Giro but then 5 weeks after its the Tour and he will not just fall into line behind Froome. Should be a great Tour this year with Froome, Wiggo, Contador, Nibali and Evans all looking like they should be strong this year.

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