Mark Cavendish conquers in Qatar, taking his fourth straight win, dominating in the overall and points classification. Yauheni Hutarovich (AG2R) claimed second, once again fractions of a second off Cav, whilst Barry Markus (Vaconsoleil-DCM) returned to his top ten form, securing third.
Cavendish thanked the peloton publicly via Twitter post race, “Amazing to have a race full of real gentlemen today, who neutralised a close race so I could rejoin the group after crashing. Thanks to all”. This came in response to the peloton easing off after only 15kms of racing when Cav went down due to an accident on the approach to a roundabout.
This is his second GC win of his career following his win in the Netherlands last year at Ster ZLM. He also matched Tom Boonen’s feat of four stage wins at Qatar back in 2006. Cavendish was “a little nervous” with the pressure of defending Boonen’s title, but is thriving at his new team Omega Pharma-QuickStep, with five wins already this season.
Going into the stage, Cavendish had a 15second lead over Brent Bookwalter, bar an accident, the GC was all but his. After graciously being allowed back into the peloton after his crash, OPQS kept a high tempo until 10km out, disrupting the chance of a breakaway win. Cannondale, Argos-Shimano and Sky all took turns on the front within the last 5km, stringing the peloton out with a relentlessly high pace.
Cavendish, 30 riders back at the flamme rouge, and seemingly boxed in, showed why he is a world class sprinter, negotiating the maze of racers to burst through metres from the line and take the win from Hutarovich by half a wheel. Cav recognised the similarities to Stage 4, where the wind came from the right, stayed left in the shelter and used the same tactics as when he won in 2009 here at Doha Corniche.
Britain showed their increasing ability in the sport, Geraint Thomas (Sky) took 10th, an impressive follow up to his third in the Santos Tour Down under, Luke Rowe (Sky) placed 9th and Adam Blythe of BMC came 4th in the overall and second in the youth classification. After his win in Stage 1, followed up by BMC’s win in the Team Time Trial, Bookwalter held onto second with teammate Taylor Phinney in third, 25 and 26 seconds back respectively.
Next up is the Tour of Oman, where British Sky duo, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome will no doubt be pitching their abilities head to head looking forward to the centenary edition of the TdF.
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