Red letter day for Bennati

Daniele Bennati claimed the leader's red jersey at the Tour of Oman following his second place in the fourth stage on Wednesday.

The Liquigas rider, who won the second stage, chased home Leigh Howard of HTC-Columbia who was notching his first victory as a pro in what is his debut season. Quick-Step's Tom Boonen filled the other podium position.

Bennati now heads the overall standings after Team Sky's Edvald Boasson Hagen finished one minute and five seconds adrift following the testing 187km route from Ibri to Nakhal.

However there was a suggestion afterwards - from Bennati among others, who was quoted on www.cyclingnews.com - that the crucial attack came when Boasson Hagen had stopped for a toilet break.

Team Sky's Mathew Hayman explained: "Towards the end of the route we were defending the jersey and everything looked to be going okay but with 50k to go a group went away.

"We tried to get it back and were chasing all the way to the finish but we're really disappointed because we were looking to hold the overall lead and we really thought he had a good chance of winning here."

Unwritten rule

When asked if the team felt the attack came during the toilet break, Hayman added: "That's the way we see it but it's racing and there are no rules about that. It's a bit of an unwritten rule as nature calls every now and then but we're just disappointed.

"We regrouped after that, got the whole team together and chased as hard as we could to try and get Edvald back on terms with the leaders but unfortunately we couldn't quite do it.

"Everybody is disappointed with the result but nobody did anything wrong today. We had Juan Antonio Flecha, Ian Stannard and Lars-Petter Nordhaug controlling the race unbelievably all day."

Bouncing back

The team will now focus their attention on Thursday's penultimate stage, with Hayman explaining: "We're hoping to come back tomorrow to show just how good Edvald is.

"Now that we've lost the overall lead we can just focus purely on the sprint which is likely to feature at the end of tomorrow's stage as it's a fairly flat route.

"If there's some wind maybe we can take the lead in the wind but I think we'll generally just go for the sprint and make sure everyone is there for Edvald at the finish."

Thursday's stage is a 148km trek from Wattayat to Sultan Qaboos Stadium before Friday's concluding 18.6km time trial out of Al Jissah.

Stage four result:

1 - Leigh Howard - (AUS) - HTC-Columbia - ( 4:11:31)
2 - Daniele Bennati - (ITA) - Liquigas - (same time)
3 - Tom Boonen - (BEL) - Quick-Step - (same time)
4 - Roger Hammond - (ENG) - Cervélo - (same time)
5 - Tyler Farrar - (USA) - Garmin - (same time)
6 - Stijn Vandenbergh - (BEL) - Katyusha - (same time)
7 - Sébastien Hinault - (FRA) - AG2R - (same time)
8 - Markus Burghardt - (GER) - BMC Racing Team - (same time)
9 - Michael Schär - (SUI) - BMC Racing Team - (same time)
10 - Robert Hunter - (RSA) - Garmin - (same time)

Overall result after stage four:

1 - Daniele Bennati - (ITA) - Liquigas - ( 12:12:29)
2 - Tyler Farrar - (USA) - Garmin - (+6)
3 - Gatis Smukulis - (LAT) - AG2R - (+6)
4 - Leigh Howard - (AUS) - HTC-Columbia - (+6)
5 - Nikolai Trussov - (RUS) - Katyusha - (+11)
6 - Tom Boonen - (BEL) - Quick-Step - (+12)
7 - Cyril Lemoine - (FRA) - Saur-Sojasun - (+14)
8 - Bernhard Eisel - (AUT) - HTC-Columbia - (+16)
9 - Sébastien Hinault - (FRA) - AG2R - (+16)
10 - Roger Hammond - (ENG) - Cervélo - (+16)