Oman: Goss Wins, Peloton Halved

Thinning of the herd Matt Goss kept his strong 2011 going with a big stage 2 victory in Oman in which he was one of only a few sprinters to actually make it to the sprint.

A tricky little climb near the middle of the stage wasn't a launching point for any breakaways, but instead decimated the main field and eliminated the title hopes of several prominent contenders.

One of which was the red jersey. Theo Bos was unable to stick with the leaders over the climb and had to surrender his leader's jersey to Goss. Bos was not alone, however, as sprinters Cavendish, Hushovd, Boonen, Sutton, Hunt, Brown, and Hammond were nowhere to be found when the field lined up for the final sprint to the finish.

Also in that grupetto were potential GC contenders like Filippo Pozzato, Marcus Burghardt, Sandy Casar, (yesterday's 3rd) Roger Kluge, and Gert Steegmans.

Taylor Phinney came home with the trailer as well, but was potitive about his performance on the climb and felt like he was an effective member of his BMC team.

One man that did make it over was Boasson-Hagen.
While Eddy BH came up just short on the day (3rd), he moved into prime position (3rd GC) in the General Classification and kept his hopes of winning the entire event alive. He also will be wearing the points leader jersey tomorrow.

The important thing to take of all this is that many of the legitimate GC contenders (Gesink, Rodriguez, Meyer, Vinokourov, Flecha, Cancellara, etc) were happy to stay put safely in the peloton and wait for the big showdowns on Friday and Saturday.

But Goss was clearly the champion of today's showdown, and now it is HTC-Highroad finding some success after Garmin dominated most of the early part of the season. There is still the matter of getting Cavendish that 1st win, though.
Stage 2 Results

1. Matt Goss
2. Daniele Bennati
3. Edvald Boasson-Hagen

General Classification

1. Matt Goss
2. Daniele Bennati -4
3. Edvald Boasson-Hagen -6
4. Pieter Serry -7
5. Tanel Kangert -9

Stage 3

It might end up a sprint, but when I glance at this the first thing that stands out to me is the hill that could be a good jumping off point for some attacks. Keep an eye on Cam Meyer and Flecha tomorrow, as they will need to get some kind of advantage before the mountains.