Rui Costa shows his class in Tour of Oman’s stage 3

Rui Costa always maintains a certain amount of class and he showed that today in the third stage of the Tour of Oman, closing second place, at three seconds, behind Olympic Champion Greg Van Avermaet and ahead of Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) and Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida).
Good performance for Kristoff too, 12th at 14″.

The stage began at the German University of Technology and closed after 179.5 kilometres at the Wadi Dayqah Dam. It included an interesting finale, with a short climb at 2.5km remaining, a fast descent and a last ramp to the finish line.

“Today I had good feelings coming in to the final, so on the descent coming into that ramp, I put myself on the wheels of the BMC riders working for Van Avermaet in order to control him,” Rui Costa (photo Bettini) said. “Greg, unfortunately for me, moved well and shot off from behind with a lighting-like attack.  He immediately gained enough ground so that he couldn’t be caught. He was truly strong.

“The showing today was important for me for my morale, it helps me look faithfully to the next races. In fact, the second place is a good result considering that in the last two weeks I wasn’t able to train very well due to a cold. I feel that my form is on the rise, the next days of the race will allow me to find that last spark I need“.

Stage 3 results
1 Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) 4h36’04”
2 Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) 3″
3 Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) s.t.

General classification after stage 3
1 Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) 12h56’44”
2 Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) 11″
3 Nathan Haas (Katusha-Alpecin) 13″
15 Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) 51″