Andrea Guardini of Astana has won the opening stage of the Tour Of Oman.
There was another strong field for this race which opened with a 161km stage from Bayt Al Naman Castle to Al Wutayyah.
Four riders in Jeff Van Meiraeghe, Patrick Konrad, Johann Van Zyl and Simone Andreetta, quickly formed a break and took a forty five second lead over the peloton.
That lead went out to five minutes with 40.8kms being covered in the first hour of racing.
It was down to 3.55 when Patrick Konrad, the most aggressive rider of the day, took the first sprint of the day after 47.5kms ahead of Van Meiraeghe and Andreetta.
Johann van Zyl of MTN Qhubeka, decided to launch a solo attack and opened up a thirty five second lead as he took the second sprint after 88 kilometres.
With the others dropping back to the peloton, van Zyl had a lead of 1.40 going into the final kilometres. However, it was not enough and he was caught before the riders started on the final twenty kilometres of the stage.
Katusha and Lampre did plenty of work on the front but the race came down to a sprint which Andrea Guardini of Astana won in 3.48.38 ahead of Tom Boonen, Matteo Pelucchi, Ramon Sinkeldam and Alexander Kristoff with Guardini also taking the lead in the points jersey and Patrick Konrad, the lead in the Young Riders classification.