Mark Cavendish will hope to have fully recovered from scrapes and bruises suffered on the final stage of the Tour of Qatar when he leads Team Sky’s assault on the Tour of Oman tomorrow (14).
The Manx Missile crashed in the bunch sprint to the Doha Corniche but recovered to cross the line and later ‘tweeted’ that he had ‘sung an opera’ during a post-race shower to clean his wounds.
He can be expected to have resumed his customary focus when the riders roll out in front of the Al Alam Palace to begin the first of six stages in the 2012 Tour of Oman.
The world road race champion, one of four British riders in Sky’s eight-man squad, will carry good form into a race where two thirds of the stages are flat.
Ten WorldTour teams will contest the 875km tour, with some of professional cycling’s biggest names set to start their seasons in the desert, including Radioshack-Nissan-Trek’s Andy Schleck.
Others will be hoping to extend their early season form, among them Cavendish, and the Tour of Qatar’s overall winner, Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quickstep). Boonen will be accompanied by his lieutenant, Gert Steegman’s, whose strength and dedication were evident in Qatar, and joined by three-time Tour stage winner, Sylvain Chavanel. the former world time trial champion, Bert Grabsch.
Omega Pharma-Quickstep’s directeur sportif, Wilfried Peeters, described Steegmans as a “a fiundamental pillar for Boonen’s victory in Qatar” and said the Belgian would again be called upon to lead out Omega Pharma-Quickstep’s sprinters.
“For the general classification we can count on Sylvain Chavanel, who was already a major player in Argentina and on Peter Velits, although he hasn’t raced as much as Sylvain. After the success in Qatar it would be exceptional to grab at least one stage success in nearby Oman,” he added.
BMC’s eight-man line up will include Britain’s Adam Blythe, who will ride for the first time in Oman. “I’ve never done this race before, but you can’t get any racing like it back home this time anywhere in Europe,” he said. “I’m off to a good start and I’ve got a good foundation to build upon.” Alessandro Ballan, world road race champion in 2008, will lead the team.
The race starts with a 159km stage from the al Alam Palace in Musquat, on the coast of the Sea of Oman, to Wadi Al Huwqayn, beginning three days of flat racing that could deliver spectacular bunch finishes, with Boonen, Cavendish, and Garmin-Barracuda’s Tyler Farrar certain to play a role.
On the fourth stage, an undulating 142.5 kilometres from Wilayat Bibbid to Al Wadi Al Kabir, however, things could become interesting. Strong men like Cancellara may seize their opportunity on this desert-based Classics parcours. The following day’s Queen Stage, from Wilayat Boshar to Wilayat Nizwa could prove decisive, with first man home at the summit of Jabal Al Akhdar likely to be in contention for overall victory when the race ends the following day in Wilayat Matrah.
The Tour of Oman promises much in only its third year. Guaranteed sunshine, and the challenging climbs of the Sultanate’s ‘green mountains’ deliver a passable impersonation of conditions that won’t be encountered by the peloton on European soil until May. As an early-season test of form it has more to offer the Grand Tour contenders than was provided at either the Tour Down Under or the Tour of Qatar.
