Tour of Oman: Rodriguez wins mountain stage

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Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and Chris Froome (Team Sky) out maneuvered and out gunned big rivals Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff), Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) on the decisive stage 4 at the Tour of Oman to Green Mountain.

Rodriguez jumped away on the steep 13.5 percent gradient final section to win the stage, with Froome finishing four seconds behind him and distancing his rivals enough to ensure that he took the race leader's red jersey, with just two stages remaining.

The only mountain finish of the six-day race was a tactical battle between the expected favourites for much of the way, with the riders attacking each other before being caught and then other riders having a go. Contador, Nibali and Evans, who celebrated his 36th birthday with a day of hard racing, all tried attacks. However, Rodriguez and Froome had the better legs and better timing, distancing the others in the decisive moment of the race: the final kilometre.

Rodriguez got a gap as the climb cut across the mountain side under the finish area and managed to hold onto his lead all the way to the line. Froome made his own late attack but just failed to catch the Spaniard. Evans finished third but was 22 seconds down on Rodriguez, Contador was fourth at 27 seconds, and Nibali was fifth at 35 seconds. Other riders finished in different levels of fatigue and dehydration, with Matthias Friedemann (Champion System) who had been in the early five-man break of the stage, as the last to make it to the top, 15:10 behind Rodriguez.

Froome leaned on the wall at the side of the road after he finished, gasping desperately for breath in the heat and altitude on Green Mountain. The pain was well worth it and no doubt eased and turned sweet when he was told that he had secured the race lead. He now leads Evans by 24 seconds, with Contador third at 25 seconds and Nibali fourth at 34 seconds.

"Things went better than expected," Froome said as he rode on the rollers at the summit to help his recovery.

"Today was the first real test for me this year. It's extremely comforting to know that the winter has been a solid winter. I haven't done a lot of high end training yet, and so to get a result like this is a very comforting feeling."

"I don't think you can take much from the results. It's still February, and I doubt few riders have done intensity work but it's a good position to be in."

Froome made a point of thanking all his teammates, revealing how they helped him after he was somewhat worryingly dropped and isolated at the start of the climb to the finish.

"Having lost a bit of time on final climb yesterday, I was a bit apprehensive, but I owe it all to team today," he said.

"Saxo took it up at the bottom of the climb. It was very hard and very explosive. I got dropped on the first part of climb and was in the second group. I got across in no man's land on the flat and had Richie upfront. He helped me control Contador, while I tried to ride without any major surges. It was very tactical racing with Contador, Nibali and even Rodriguez doing huge accelerations."

"I saw the 500m to go banner and wasn't sure if the climb continued to go up. But I thought I'd better get moving and after that, I just tried to stay clear."

Friday's 144km fifth stage from Al Alam Palace to the Ministry of Housing includes three nasty climbs in the finale, but Team Sky and Froome seem strong enough to repel any audacious attacks.

The Kenyan-born Brit looks the favourite to win his first stage race as a professional rider. Success or even failure will be a vital jump up the learning curve of being a team leader and Tour de France contender.

"Tomorrow is going to be very hard, no doubt they'll throw everything at us," he predicted. "It's a narrow margin but I'll take what we've got and it's an honour to have the jersey."

Rodriguez brings a smile to everyone at Katusha

Joaquim Rodriguez was overjoyed to have won the stage and brought some much needed smiles to everyone at the Katusha team.

The Russian team's future hangs in the balance, with the expected decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) set to decide if the team secures a WorldTour licence and consequently whether Rodriguez stays or jumps ship to ensure that he rides the Tour de France. For now, the Spaniard is happy to race and win for Katusha, and he celebrated with his teammates and directeur sportif Valerio Piva at the summit of Green Mountain.

"I wasn't think about winning. I thought I could make fifth, sixth or seventh, but the team backed me all the way to the foot of the climb, and I felt perfect. I just went for it, to see what I could achieve," he said.

"I tried lower down the climb, but knew it'd be better to wait. We came back together on the earlier section but then I attacked with two kilometres, that's my kind of distance. Even if in the final 500 metres, I didn't have a lot of strength in my legs and the finish seemed a log way away."

Rodriguez dedicated his win to his wife and his teammates, hoping for a favourable sentence and a place in the UCI WorldTour from the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

"It's St. Valentines Day, and so this win has to be for my wife. My family sent me a video message this morning of them singing all together, and so this has to be for them," he said.

"It's also for the team. I just hope we get the right verdict from the CAS. It wouldn't be a bad thing for the Katusha team, and I think for everyone in cycling if we could be part of the WorldTour."

Note: The stage distance was officially 143.5km after a reduction from the originally planned 152.5km.