Tour of Oman 4-6

Another stage, another grey mountainous martian landscape.... today's stage is due to end on the alleged Green Mountain, which - you will note - is not Green at all, but is the same murky grey martian colour as the rest of the landscape. Such a disappointment.

We start our brief coverage with a small break, containing not one but two members of Wanty "Go, Bears!" - presumably they had to send two ordinary riders to take the place of Kenny de Haas and his flowing barnet - and then suddenly it's 10k to go, and Daniel 'Oss is panting like a dog at the front of the bunch, closely followed by Richie Porte who I simply cannot recognise in his BMC ladybird kit.

The lovely Jakob Fuglsang is pulling on the front for Nibbles again (I do hope he is being well paid for all this domestiqueing, considering he left Leopard Trek in order to flower and grow and no longer have to domestique for the Schlecks...), and Romain Bardet clips off the front - so I really don't know who to cheer for.

I'm impressed to see Tom Dumoulin (who looks like being quite a contender for the gc later this year) "doing a Frome", ie he gets dropped on the climb, but instead of giving up, or overstraining himself trying to catch up, he is plugging away at his own pace, and steadily gaining ground.

Romain pings off the front! Nibali goes with him! While the eyes of the world  - well, the couple of hundred of us watching Eurosport, at any rate - are on those two, Jakob cleverly sneaks up on the other side of the road, which is so wide that he can do so unobserved quite easily.

Dumoulin is still plugging away remorselessly, gaining on the lovely Jakob as the finish line - 2k further away than it was last year, cruelly - comes into sight.

"Not exactly the Alps, is it?" comments LLB: no, there's a five foot high wall on one side, a wall of grey rock on the other, you can barely see the sky, and certainly can't see any scenery.

In the end, Nibali takes the stage, with dear little Romain in second place, Jakob in third and Dumoulin bringing up a very respectable fourth place.

Bardet is interviewed (en Francais, so I have no real idea what he was saying) surrounded by a pushing, jostling crowd of other riders, and then it's Nibali's turn: oh, they've found him a folding chair to sit on, hmmm, guess that shows who is the senior rider, then?

Stage Five is a short stage, ending with three times up and down the final hill, but going twice up on side of it, and once up the other side, just to stave off boredom for the riders.

As always, there is an unintentionally hilarious commentary from Rob Hatch, doing a sterling job of commenting all alone, and totally failing to conceal the fact that he knows perfectly well what the outcome of the race would be. This gives a lovely "psychic" slant to his commentary - he mentions what riders are going to do just before they do it.

Still flabbergasted by the lack of scenery and colour, LLB and I wonder if the climbs - particularly the repeated one - are completely soul-destroying for the riders. With grey mountain on one side, and grey walls on the other, all they can see is an unending ribbon of perfect grey tarmac as they toil upwards and onwards, tongues hanging out.

Today's finish is apparently at the "Ministry of Tourism" which I assume to be a building, rather than a political movement. Very 1984....

With 1k to go, the "could try harder" DDDs come to the front and pull like trojans, and it's all worth the effort as EBH takes the stage: he truly is the best of the second tier sprinters.

Once again we have Jakob on the podium along with Nibali and Romain: and my attention is distracted by seeing a real, live woman walk past the back of the podium - clearly the Ministry of Tourism is monitoring this blog, and have taken steps to address my concerns about the repression of women.

Now we are onto Stage 6, final stage of the race: this is the third and final race set in the arab peninsula - we didn't see Quatar but we know it's pretty much the same as Dubai, ie hot and flat: this is the first hilly race of the season, so it's good to see everyone stretching their legs and weaving from side to side.

Kristoff is charming in his pre-race interview: I still can't believe that he's not a Dark Lord at all (although he is riding for the Dark Lords) but is Norwegian!  Nibali has clearly been bribed to say nice things about the race, and comments "there's a lot of different scenery here" which is an absolute fib, of course: it's yet more of the grey, martian landscape with sand at the bottom, and rocks sticking up.

The start is quite nice, all things considered, with crowds of European spectators (which you can tell because not even the women are wearing dresses) at least one or two deep all the way along the barriered section.

Our coverage jumps to 50k to go, with the break just over a minute ahead and an embarrassed peloton determined not to repeat the fiasco of this stage last year, where was was supposed to be a sprint finish was ruined by letting the break get too far ahead, so the sprinters wasted their day.

Not this year, though! At 11k to go, Gianni Meerkat sticks his head above the crowd in the break, and scampers off the front, just for the fun of it, as there are no KOM points to be won. We assume that someone told him this, before the race? Maybe not... but his move whittles down the leading group to just 4 riders with 7k and one lap to go.

There is an Incident: as they go round the 180 degree turn at the roundabout for the last time, I distinctly see one rider take a sneaky shortcut, apparently unnoticed by anyone else!

Daniel 'Oss is once again in good form, pulling like a train on the front of the main bunch (which did, of course, catch the break) and managing to give the Dark Lords a scare by creating a gap: however, the Dark Lords get it together, pull back the gap, and by 1k to go they are on the front, and pulling hard for Kristoff (the Norwegian) who wins the stage.

The men in white dresses applaud politely.

As always, I am staggered that these guys - the riders, not the men in white dresses - can ride in the hot desert sun for 3 hours or more, yet within a minute of finishing, can calmly give interviews, without even being breathless, and with their hair all fluffy and dry. I would be a grease-spot, with sweat running down my nose and my hair plastered to my head.

What it is to be fit, eh?!