Wellens wins Ruta del Sol

Lutsenko clinches Oman Tour title

The winner of the 2018 Tour of Oman, UCI Kazakh rider Alexey Lutsenko (center), of the Astana Pro Team, stands on the podium with his Colombian teammate and runner up Miguel Angel Lopez (left), and third place Gorka Izagirre (right), of the Bahrain Merida team after the sixth and last stage between

Al Mouj Muscat and Matrah Corniche in Muscat on Feb 18. (AFP)

BARBATE, Spain, Feb 18, (AFP): Chris Froome finished in 10th place at the Ruta del Sol on his return to racing, as Belgium’s Tim Wellens claimed overall victory in southern Spain on Sunday.

Froome has dominated the attention on the event in Andalusia, as the Team Sky rider competes for the first time since the revelation of his abnormal doping test at last year’s Vuelta a Espana.

But the four-time Tour de France winner only just scraped into the top 10 after the final stage, a 14.2km individual timetrial around Barbate, near Cadiz.

Froome’s Sky team-mate David de la Cruz of Spain won the stage in a time of 17min 11sec, while the 32-year-old Briton was 11th on the day after finishing 27sec adrift. Ruta del Sol standings Fifth and final stage 1. David de la Cruz (ESP/Sky) 17:11, 2. Andrey Amador (CRC/Movistar) at 0:06, 3. Stef Clement (NED/LottoNLJumbo) at 7sec, 4. Alexis Gougeard (FRA/AG2R-La Mondiale) at 8sec, 5. Marc Soler (ESP/Movistar) at 9sec

Overall