Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) powered to victory on stage five of the Tour of Oman atop Green Mountain, as his teammate Alexey Lutsenko took the lead in the overall standings.
On the last climb, Astana made a big move and three riders of the team attacked and rode away from the reduced peloton. Lopez, Lutsenko and Jan Hirt rode alone in front until the Czech rider could no longer keep up with the pace and was left behind by the Colombian and the Kazakh.
The two Astana riders stayed together around the final curve and were able to share the honours at the finish line.
“A very nice day for us! I am so happy to win today and see next to me this amazing team as Astana is! I felt very strong today, the legs worked perfectly on the climb. Actually, nobody could attack on the final climb, so we just followed our plan and after a great job of our teammates we went away together with Alexey. Of course, the climb was super hard, but we managed to pass it as we wanted and finally, we took the stage. That’s a nice feeling to win here and to start my season in this way!”, explained Miguel Angel Lopez.
https://youtu.be/uFaapB8MaLg
Tour of Oman 2018 – stage 5 results (Sama’il – Jabal Al Akhdhar):
| 1 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | 3:43:58 |
| 2 | Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) | ,, |
| 3 | Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) | +12” |
| 4 | Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) | +15” |
| 5 | Nathan Haas (Katusha-Alpecin) | +22” |
| 6 | Peter Stetina (Trek-Segafredo) | +25” |
| 7 | Daniel Pearson (Aqua Blue Sport) | +33” |
| 8 | Dries Devenyns (Quick-Step Floors) | +43” |
| 9 | Nicolas Roche (BMC) | +47” |
| 10 | Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) | +49” |
General classification after stage 5:
| 1 | Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) | 19:38:21 |
| 2 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | +11” |
| 3 | Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) | +28” |
| 4 | Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) | +30” |
| 5 | Nathan Haas (Katusha-Alpecin) | +32” |
| 6 | Dries Devenyns (Quick-Step Floors) | +01’05” |
| 7 | Daniel Navarro (Cofidis) | +01’14” |
| 8 | Christian Odd Eiking (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) | +01’24” |
| 9 | Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data) | +01’29” |
| 10 | Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) | +01’37” |
