Stage 3 at the Tour of Oman delivered another uphill finish after 162km of racing from Sultan Qaboos University to Quriyat, where Team Sunweb's Søren Kragh Andersen took his first professional win ahead of Rui Costa (UAE Abu Dhabi) and overall leader Ben Hermans (BMC Racing).
The early going was animated by a six-man breakaway that formed after a frantic start. In the group were Matthew Brammeier (Aqua Blue Sport), Chun Kai Feng (Bahrain Merida), Bert Van Lerberghe (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Gavin Mannion (UnitedHealthcare), Kazushige Kuboki (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Frantisek Sisr (CCC Sprandi Polkowice).
The gap went out to more than four minutes before Katusha and Astana came to the front to help BMC with the chase. The gap immediately began to drop from there, with the escapees seeing their advantage reduced to 2:15 with 50km remaining.
The race to position the climbers for the bottom of the final climb was the last dagger in the breakaway, and with 15km to go they were back in the fold. That left a frenetic finale as weaker riders faded from the bunch and the stage contenders started launching their bids for victory. In the end, it was Andersen who timed his effort perfectly to take the win.
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