Tour of Oman gets underway today

Muscat: The Tour of Oman begins today and it will be a cycling festival that Oman will be witness to with some of the top riders from around the world in action. All eyes will be on the 2016 Tour of Oman winner Vincenzo Nibali, who is the only former champion in the start list. The Italian will hope to register his first peak of the season for the Ardennes Classics in April. Nibali has not really had much of a great run in Oman except for the overall victory in 2016.  Last year’s edition was clinched by BMC Racing with Ben Hermans. Although, Hermans has moved to the Israel Cycling Academy over the winter, they have Nicholas Roche as their General Classification hopeful.

This edition of Tour of Oman will be Hermans’ first appearance at the race since 2014 when he was working for Roman Kreuziger at Tinkoff-Saxo so it will be interesting to see how it goes. They also have Jempy Drucker and Greg Van Avermaet as potential stage winners. BMC Racing won last year’s edition with Ben Hermans and while the Belgian has moved to Israel Cycling Academy over the winter, they have Nicolas Roche as their GC hopeful. It’s his first appearance at the race since 2014 when he was working for Roman Kreuziger at Tinkoff-Saxo so it will be interesting to see how he goes. They also have Jempy Drucker and Greg Van Avermaet as potential stage winners.

For Astana, Miguel Angel Lopez has been growing in stature as a general classification rider. A former winner of the Tour de Suisse, the Colombian has endured an injury-marred few seasons. After a challenging start to 2017, he came out swinging in the latter part of the year with stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana and the Vuelta a Burgos. He is targeting the Giro d’Italia this year and an early-season result would set him up nicely. Other riders to keep a watch for in the battle for the overall standings are last year’s runner-up Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates), Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data), Nathan Haas (Katusha-Alpecin) and Peter Stetina (Trek-Segafredo).