Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease A Bike) sped to his second stage win of the week at the 2025 Tour of Oman, beating Giacomo Nizzolo (Q36.5) to the finish line on stage 4 at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Center.
Erlend Blikra (Uno-X Mobility) launched the sprint on the uphill drag to the finish line, but it was Kooij who was in prime position on the Norwegian rider’s wheel. The Dutchman launched out into the wind in the closing 200 metres and charged past.
Behind Kooij, Nizzolo was in the next best position to challenge, but he didn’t have the time or the speed to get up to the 23-year-old, and so he had to settle for second place. Orluis Aular (Movistar) rounded out the podium ahead of Blikra in fourth, while Max Kanter (XDS Astana) took fifth place.
"It was good for me. We could control the finish with the team, and they helped me very well," Kooij said after the stage.
“After coming from the winter in Europe, it takes some time to get used to [racing], but the feelings are good."
“We knew the last kilometre would be important to get in a good position. I could then follow the right wheels to start my sprint at exactly the right moment.”
Stage 4 was a largely flat one with no classified climbs and 607 metres of elevation spread across its 181.5km. As a result, only three riders ventured out into the breakaway.
Abdulrahman Alyaqoobi (Oman National Team), Kongphob Thimachai (Roojai Insurance), and Muhammad Mohd Shabri (Terengganu) were the men in question, with the peloton happy to leave the trio to ride well up the road.
The break led the way across the day’s two intermediate sprints, at one point leading by a margin of over nine minutes, though at the second sprint in Ad Dasur, 64km from the finish, Alyaqoobi had already been displaced from the move and caught by the peloton.
At 45km to go, Mohd Shabri was back with the main group, leaving Thimachai out on his own two minutes up the road. Behind him, sprinter’s teams including Picnic-PostNL and Visma-Lease A Bike led the peloton ahead of the expected bunch finish.
Thimachai battled on alone into the final 20km of the stage, hanging on to an ever-decreasing gap before finally being brought back at 13km to go. From there, it was all up to the sprint squads.
Soudal-QuickStep and UAE Team Emirates-XRG joined the fray at the front, while Groupama-FDJ and Uno-X Mobility also had spells at the head of the race in the final
five kilometres. It was Uno-X and Visma who led the way into the uphill final kilometre of the stage, however.
Uno-X controlled the run-in with Stian Fredheim leading out Blikra for the dash to the finish line, though it was Kooij who had the faster finish from Blikra’s wheel.
After taking the victory on Monday’s stage 3 up Eastern Mountain, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) retains the overall race lead, six seconds up on Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). The Tour of Oman concludes with a 138.5km race-deciding stage to Green Mountain on Wednesday.
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