Categories
News

Mark Cavendish Conquers Qatar

Mark Cavendish wins Tour of QatarMark Cavendish has won the Tour of Qatar for Omega-Pharma Quick Step after finishing first on the final leg, the 116km from Sealine Beach Resort to Doha Corniche, making it four consecutive wins out of the six stages. It looked much like a repeat of yesterday’s action with Cavendish amongst the bunch sprint forming inside the final 10km of action, but having to fight hard in the final 1km to beat Yauheni Hutarovich (Ag2R La Mondiale) by barely half a wheel to finish in a time of 3h 24’ 31”. He went into today’s stage with a 15second advantage over second place Brent Bookwalter and 20 on third placed Taylor Phinney (both BMC Racing) meaning that only a catastrophe could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for the Manx Missile, but ultimately he dominated the stage every bit as much as he has dominated the tour.

 

The final overall standings were

Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) in 15h 55’ 20”

Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing) +25″

Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) +26″

 

Categories
News

2013 Tour of Qatar

2013 Tour of QatarThe 2013 Tour of Qatar starts tomorrow – Sunday February 3 – with six days of action that sees 18 teams and a total of 144 riders line up. Defending champion Tom Boonen, who has won the event an impressive four times, isn’t amongst the starters due to injury, replaced instead by Mark Cavendish making his début for Omega Pharma-QuickStep (just as he did for Team Sky at the start of the 2012 season). Cavendish is one of six British riders taking part, the others being Adam Blythe (BMC Racing), Russell Downing (NetApp-Endura) and the Team Sky trio of Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas. For his part Cavendish will be hoping for better fortune than last year when a heavy crash on the final day’s sprint ended his contention.

 

This year’s Tour of Qatar will total 732.5km of cycling consisting of the following stages:

 

Stage 1 (Feb 3) Katara Cultural Village – Dukhan Beach, 145km

Stage 2 (Feb 4) Al Rufaa Street – Al Rufaa Street, 14km Team Time Trial

Stage 3 (Feb 5) Al Wakra – Mesaieed, 143km

Stage 4 (Feb 6) Camel Race Track – Al Khor Corniche, 160km

Stage 5 (Feb 7) Al Zubara Fort to Madinat Al Shamal, 154km

Stage 6 (Feb 8) Sealine Beach Resort – Doha Corniche, 116km

 

Further details and results on the official website letour.com