Oman: Congrats to Bos, Personal Rant

Bos survives mishaps to beat out Cavendish. I'm sorry if this seems more like a rant than it does a recap, but sometimes things just need to be said.

Let's start with the positive

Theo Bos and his Rabobank squad put in a solid performance on the finishing sprint and the Dutch rider was able to hold off the charging Manx Missile at the finish line to grab both the stage and the GC.

After his victory, Bos was quick to thank teammate and fellow sprinter Graeme Brown for a nice leadout and managed to avoid the chaos behind. (more on that later)

Taylor Phinney was very competitive in his pro debut, and may have even contended for the win had it not been for the spectator problem.

Overall, I think he looks at today as a positive and a confidence boost for the rest of the week. BMC was working for him at the end, so obviously they believe that he can potentially give them success right now.

As for the other young phenom, Edvald Boasson-Hagen was able to sprint to a 4th place finish in his first action of the year. That's a solid finish for him and a good potential launching point for success later in the week.

But this stage also will probably sound the alarms for the riders in regards to the organization and safety for the rest of the week as well.I'm not specifically calling out any person/group. I'm just saying things need to improve.

For starters, the race was delayed almost an hour because half of the peloton did not even have their bikes. Ok, mishaps are bound to happen sometimes and eventually everyone had a machine and got the race started. Other than perhaps a bit of extra fatigue and the fading daylight at the finish, no harm no foul.

But it hardly stops at that.

The sign that usually marks 3 kms to go before the finish was misplaced, and the riders did not see it until they had just 2 kilometers remaining before the finish. This disrupted the movement of the sprint teams, and Cavendish (though he was able to recover) said that it threw off HTC's leadout train.

But wait...there's still more.

There were spectators standing in the middle of the course. Yes, you read that right. I don't know how they got there. I don't know why nobody asked them to leave. But they were still there when the field opened up for the sprint and caused chaos among the pack. Both Cavendish and Phinney noted after the race that they had to disrupt their sprints in order to dodge fans and they had a difficult time recovering their speed afterwards.

Unacceptable.

But even considering these problems, there could still have been a way to minimize the effects.

RACE RADIO

Had the teams been able to use the race radio, the riders would have been notified of the misplaced signs as well as the spectator hazard at the finish. This is yet another example of the safety advantages a radio would bring that the UCI neglects to acknowledge.

But I will close with this:

The circumstances today do NOT in any way tarnish or diminish Bos's win today. He had to deal with them the same as everybody else.

Stage 2

Hopefully this one will finish without any mishaps. Looks like another sprint.