For the second consecutive year, Tejay van Garderen (BMC) found himself as the runner up on the Green Mountain stage of the Tour of Oman. The American looked despondent as he crossed the line just moments behind Rafael Valls (Lampre-Merida) after the Spaniard attacked him inside the final kilometre to take the win and the race lead.
After ridding himself of the race favourites, van Garderen thought that he was home and dry and admits that he didn’t consider Valls as a real challenger. “I was hoping for the victory. I was feeling good all day and my team was superb on the last climb,” he said at the top of Green Mountain.
“When I attacked, I dropped Valverde and Majka off my wheel. So I was thinking, smooth sailing as those were the two guys that I was worried about. Valls, I definitely underestimated him and he got the better of me in the final.”
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BMC caught the two-man breakaway group at the foot of the final climb pushing the pace until under three kilometres to go and reeling in two speculative attacks from Vincenzo Nibali. Van Garderen carried on their work with several of his own moves and while he was able to shake the big favourites he didn’t have the legs to finish it off.
“I was doing all the attacks to get rid of all the big names and him being a dark horse he was able to catch a free ride and sit on my wheel,” he said.
“He attacked and I countered and then he countered and he just had that last little bit in the end.”
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