Tour of Oman: Anthon Charmig wins stage 3 hilltop finish

Anthon Charmig won the third stage of the Tour of Oman in an explosive hilltop finish in Quarayyat and took over the lead of the race alongside it.

Kevin van Melsen (Intermarché - Wanty - Gobert Matériaux), Samuele Zoccarato (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè), Louis Blouwe (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB), Peio Goikoetxea (Euskaltel - Euskadi), Angel Fuentes (Burgos-BH) and Umberto Poli (Team Novo Nordisk) marked the day's breakaway but it was never a confident possibility that they would make it to the line. The peloton chased hard and caught the group with 12 kilometers to go, which then led to a violent leadout to the bottom of the final climb to Qurayyat which had 2.8 kilometers at almost 7% average gradient, on wide winding roads.

Arkéa-Samsic and UAE Team Emirates set a hard pace at the bottom of the climb to set up for their leaders, however the peloton stuck relatively together until the final kilometer. Jan Hirt snuck off the front of the peloton there and seemed to be going for the win as he kept the power constant until the final hundred meters. Élie Gesbert was the first to launch the sprint from the chasing group and he ended up third as he didn't manage to get through the Czech powerhouse, in Gesbert's wheel came Charmig who stuck with the accelaration and then launched his own sprint to go over the Intermarché rider and take the Norwegian's third win of the season.

The win came the day after the Uno-X Pro Cycling Team learnt they were not invited to the Tour de France. Sure enough, the Norwegian squad has taken another meaningful win and the Danish talent is in prime position to fight for the overall win of the race.