Spaniard Jesús Herrada won the second stage of the Tour of Oman on Sunday and led the five-day race on the steep final climb.
It was the 19th victory of the Cofidis driver’s career, which includes two successes in the Vuelta a España.
123 riders set out from Muscat for the 174 km race, taking 4 hours 21 minutes 07 seconds before Herrada proved to be the strongest in the 2.5 km uphill finish to Quarayat, driving about 300 meters from the line to defeat Belgian Maxime Van Giles and Italian Diego Ulissi.
“Errada had great legs and got a good win and we are both looking forward to tomorrow’s race like this,” Ulissi said.
In the overall standings, Errada leads Van Giles by 4 seconds ahead of Monday’s 152km run from Al Khobar to Jebel Haat on an 8.5% slope of nearly 5km.
British veteran Mark Cavendish, on his debut with the new Astana team, lost over seven minutes that day to finish in 110th place.
Sprint specialist Cavendish was locked out of his Saturday run for the final.
jk/bnl/dmc/nr
Source: sports.yahoo.com
