The 13th Tour of Oman, scheduled for 10 to 14 February, will serve up a five-course menu catering to all tastes, from sprinters and punchers to climbers. Its two iconic climbs —Eastern Mountain (stage 3) and Green Mountain (stage 5)— will be tough nuts to crack at this point in the season.
Battle-hardened favourites such as Adam Yates, Emanuel Buchmann and Jesús Herrada will have to keep a close eye on stars in the making such as the whiz kid Isaac del Toro and the new French kids on the block, Antoine Huby, Paul Magnier and Alexy Faure-Prost.
As the preamble to the Tour of Oman, the big guns will fire the opening salvo in the second edition of the Muscat Classic, on a 174.3 km course finishing on a 1.1 km with an average gradient of 10% climb that is the perfect launch pad for a puncher to launch a searing attack.