Tour of Oman

First-Year Pro Howard Wins in Oman

HTC-Columbia's new professional  Leigh Howard has taken an impressive bunch sprint victory in stage four of the Tour of Oman.  The 20-year-old Australian was the fastest in a group of about 40 riders ahead of Daniele Bennati of Italy and Tom Boonen of Belgium.

"I'd only ridden one previous race with the pros, the Tour of Ireland last year, so to come here and beat some of the top guys in the peloton is an amazing feeling," Howard said after the win.  "I'd been working for Bernie [HTC-Columbia teammate Bernhard Eisel] all week, but today with about 30 kilometres to go after the split had happened, I told him I was feeling really strong.  He took me to about 500 metres to go to the finish and I went for it.  I think it being a smaller group of riders like at today's finish was an advantage for me because I'm not so used to the big bunch sprints. That should come in the future."

A 2009 World Track Champion in the Omnium event, Howard said he had not been feeling too well earlier in the Tour of Oman, but "today was different.  Some of my teammates were caught out when the split happened and the front group got away, but we powered across the gap in about a kilometre. After that, I felt confident I could go for the win."

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