Consistency leads to Oman race leadership for Howard
Orica-GreenEdge sprinter tꦚakes three leaders jerseys after stage two



168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Leigh Howard may have missed out on a stage victory for the second day at the Tour of Oman on Wednesday, but his consistency and the excellent support of his 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Orica-GreenEdge teammates paid off, wi✨th the young Austral𝔍ian securing the race leader's red jersey, the green points jersey and the best young rider's white jersey.
Howard was beaten by Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) on stage o💙n🦩e and by Alexander Kristof (Katusha) on stage two. He used his track skills to survive in yet another hectic sprint, with the head wind causing the sprinters to fight🌟 for posit𝔉ion. He now leads Kristoff by two seconds thanks to the two six-second time bonuses he picked for his placings. Greipel dropped his chain in the sprint and finished 25th, slipping to third overall, also at two seconds.
"It's always nice to have a leader's jersey but of course, if I could choose, I'd go for having a stage win instead of two second places. Winning is always more important for a sprinter," he told Cyclingnews after doing a ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚseries of media interviews after pulling on ☂his hat-trick of leader's jerseys.
While Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr) went on the right of the road in the headwind sprint, Howard opted for th𓄧e left, where there was more room to man꧂oeuvre and so find space to move up.
Kristoff managed to avoid any disruption by starting his sprint early and holding his power to the line. Howard moved up late. He couldn't close the gap on the Norwegian but had to speed to beat Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and the o🎀ther sprinters who opted for the right side of the road.
"It was pretty crazy in the end," Howard expl🔯ained.
"The whole team did a perfect job again looking after me again. 🍌There was a head wind in the sprint and so we all got swamped a bit, but I took a drink of courage and decided to go up the left hand side of the road as fast as I could. I think I'm sprinting really well and made up a lot of ground in the last 200 metres, but I just needed to have start🏅ed a little bit further forward."
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Howard promised he would try and defend the race lead but knows the finale of stage three to the new Oman Parliament building at Al Bustan includes some roller coaster ro𓃲ads.
"The third stage is going to be tough, it's going to be touch ad go if I manage to keep the🍨 jersey," he said pragmatically, while also promising 🉐to put up a fight.
"There's some real tough climbs and so it's going to hard. But well try our hardest."

Stephen is one of the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.