Tour of Oman Stage 6: Froome seals overall win, Bouhanni takes final stage in the sprint

Chris Froome has won the 2013 Tour of Oman, the fourth edition of the race, with former Tour de France winners Alberto Contador of Saxo-Tinkoff and BMC Racing's Cadel Evans completing the podium, finishing 27 and 39 seconds down, respectively. The stage win on the day went to FDJ's Nacer Bouhanni ahead of Orica GreenEdge's Matt Goss, with BMC's Taylor Phinney third.

Early season races aren't the most reliable form guide, and there's a lot of racing between now and the Tour de France which starts in late June, but Froome has every reason to be satisfied with his week's work.

On Thursday, he alone was able to stay close to Katusha's Joaquim Rodriguez as the Spaniard won on Green Mountain, then yesterday, in a battle worthy of a Grand Tour, the Sky rider not only managed to check a series of attacks by Contador, but went on the offensive himself in the closing kilometres and had enough strength to beat the Saxo-Tinkoff man and Rodriguez to win the stage.

Team Sky will also be happy that by getting into the leader's jersey on Thursday, Froome will be starting to get used to the protocols that go with being in the race lead, such as attending post stage press conferences. His only previous experience of leading a race with Sky came in the 2011 Vuelta, where he moved into the lead after the Salamanca time trial, only to have to work for Bradley Wiggins the next day and surrender the red jersey to his team mate.

While the Tour of Oman is organised, like the Tour, by ASO, there is of course nothing like the media scrum that will accompany the 100th Tour in France this summer. However, with Froome officially spearheading Sky's challenge in the Tour, part of the plan in the build-up to this season's race will be to ensure, as with Wiggins last year, that by the time the Tour comes around those post-stage obligations will be second nature and therefore less of an intrusion on Froome's routine.

As well as winning the General Classification Froome also took the points jersey, while FDJ's Kenny Elissonde took the best young rider's prize. Bobby Traksel of Champion Systems, in the break in the first three stages, was the most aggressive rider, and BMC Racing took the team prize.

On today's final 144 kilometre stage from Hawit Nagam Park to Matrah Corniche, a trio of riders got away early on, comprising Katusha's Gatis Smukulis, Wesley Kreder of Vacansoleil-DCM and Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox's Andrea di Corrado. Although at one point they led the peloton by six minutes, they were reeled in ahead of two and a half laps of a closing circuit in Oman's capital, Muscat, where the sprinters teams came to the fore ahead of French champion Bouhanni taking the honours on the stage.

Tour of Oman Stage6 result  
  
1  BOUHANNI Nacer        FDJ                        3h 24' 20"
2  GOSS Matthew          ORICA GREENEDGE        All at same time
3  PHINNEY Taylor        BMC RACING TEAM
4  VIVIANI Elia          CANNONDALE
5  BOZIC Borut           ASTANA PRO TEAM
6  IMPEY Daryl           ORICA GREENEDGE
7  BOONEN Tom            OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP
8  VAN POPPEL Danny      VACANSOLEIL-DCM
9  JARC Blaz             TEAM NETAPP-ENDURA
10 COLEDAN Marco         BARDIANI VALVOLE-CSF INOX
11 TRENTIN Matteo        OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP
12 KRISTOFF Alexander    KATUSHA TEAM
13 COLBRELLI Sonny       BARDIANI VALVOLE-CSF INOX
14 FORTIN Filippo        BARDIANI VALVOLE-CSF INOX
15 DEGENKOLB John        TEAM ARGOS-SHIMANO
16 MORI Kazuhiro         JAPAN
17 HINAULT Sébastien     IAM CYCLING
18 EVANS Cadel           BMC RACING TEAM
19 SOUPE Geoffrey        FDJ
20 LAGUTIN Sergey        VACANSOLEIL-DCM
  
Final overall standings  
  
1  FROOME Christopher    SKY PROCYCLING            23h 28' 33"
2  CONTADOR Alberto      TEAM SAXO-TINKOFF           + 00' 27"
3  EVANS Cadel           BMC RACING TEAM             + 00' 39"
4  RODRIGUEZ Joaquin     KATUSHA TEAM                + 00' 50"
5  NOCENTINI Rinaldo     AG2R LA MONDIALE            + 01' 13"
6  TSCHOPP Johann        IAM CYCLING                 + 01' 13"
7  NIBALI Vincenzo       ASTANA PRO TEAM             + 01' 19"
8  ELISSONDE Kenny       FDJ                         + 01' 34"
9  POZZOVIVO Domenico    AG2R LA MONDIALE            + 01' 44"
10 BOUET Maxime          AG2R LA MONDIALE            + 01' 57"