It's been a very, very long while since the last time we've had a Pro Tour race. The riders are well-rested, and it's now time to get off with the Pro Tour season!

First Pro Tour race of the season is the Tour of Qatar, 1 Team Time Trial and plenty of flat stages. Boring? No - the weather forecast show strong winds which may trouble the sprinters.

First, there's the TTT, though, and apparently, it's snowed in Qatar (sorry about that - no idea what's wrong). The favourites for this first stage is the Danish Team B&O followed by Wikipedia and Accumalux. But first off, we have the Credit Lyonnais team.


Credit Lyonnais did manage to set a good time and rejected the next two teams, Rabobank and American Suzuki, but shortly after, Virgin Media managed to do the 11 km long time trial 8 seconds faster.


It turned out that Virgin's time was a good one. La Gazzetta came close 5 seconds down, and Festina 13 seconds down. And more importantly, the team known for its many time trial specialists, Accumalux, came in in the same time as Virgin, although a few hundreds of seconds slower.


Moments later, Wikipedia with riders such as Keizer and Meier managed to beat Virgin/Accumalux' time with 2 seconds!


SIC Radical did quite well by coming in 4th, 7 seconds after Wikipedia. At this point, there's only one team left to challenge Wikipedia: B&O. With the Czech Time Trial Champion, Roman Kreuziger, they got plenty of help, but in the end, it wasn't enough - Wikipedia takes the stage win by one second down to Team B&O.


Stage Results:

1	Matthieu Sprick	Wikipedia	14'31
2	Danny Pate	Wikipedia	s.t.
3	Sébastien Ivars	Wikipedia	s.t.
4	David Herrero Llorente	Wikipedia	s.t.
5	Ivan Stevic	Wikipedia	s.t.
6	Roman Kilun	Wikipedia	+ 1
7	Casper Jørgensen	Team B&O	s.t.
8	Tom Veelers	Team B&O	s.t.
9	Michael Faerk Christensen	Team B&O	s.t.
10	Morten Reckweg	Team B&O	s.t.
11	Thomas De Gendt	Team B&O	s.t.
12	Martijn Keizer	Wikipedia	+ 2
13	Maxime Bouet	Team B&O	s.t.
14	Ian Stannard	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
15	Jan Hopman	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
16	Pim Ligthart	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
17	Aleksandr Bespalov	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
18	Aleksandr Serebriakov	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
19	Drasutis Stundzia	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
20	Gatis Smukulis	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
21	Christian Poos	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
22	Marcel Barth	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
23	Marcel Kittel	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
24	Roman Kreuziger	Team B&O	s.t.
25	William Ford	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
26	Alex Rasmussen	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	+ 5
27	Nico Sijmens	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
28	Christian Meier	Wikipedia	s.t.
29	Nico Keinath	Team B&O	s.t.
30	Nick Clesen	Accumalux-Huez	+ 7
31	Rafaâ Chtioui	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
32	William Walker	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
33	Manuel Antonio Cardoso	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
34	Tom Leezer	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
35	Eric Berthou	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
36	Evgeni Popov	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
37	Ivan Kovalev	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
38	Michael Ford	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
39	Sergio Marinangeli	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
40	Dennis Van Winden	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
41	Rafael Rodríguez Segarra	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
42	Matej Mugerli	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
43	Jackson Rodríguez	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
44	Matteo Bono	La Gazzetta dello Sport	+ 10
45	David Vitoria	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
46	William Bonnet	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
47	Samuel Dumoulin	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
48	Blaise Sonnery	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
49	Borut Bozic	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
50	Dimitri Champion	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
51	Daniele Bennati	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
52	Michiel Elijzen	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
53	Luigi Sestili	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
54	Roman Maksimov	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
55	Jacob Fiedler	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
56	Marco Guillén	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
57	Valerio Agnoli	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
58	Vladimir Bileka	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
59	Pavel Brutt	White Bear - Wild Horse	+ 13
60	Rick Flens	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
61	Lars Croket	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
62	Jens Mouris	British Airways - Martini	+ 15
63	Ismaël Kip	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
64	Vladimir Miholjevic	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
65	Khayabkhyrvaa Uugunbayar	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
66	Anuar Manan	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
67	Mathieu Perget	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
68	Laurent Mangel	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
69	Carlos Castaño	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
70	Anthony Lavoine	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
71	Steve Morabito	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
72	Frederik Nolf	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
73	Sergio Ortega	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
74	Christoph Mai	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
75	Anthony José Brea	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
76	Kam-po Wong	British Airways - Martini	+ 18
77	David Millar	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
78	Jurgen Van Loocke	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
79	Tomas Vaitkus	M&M Cycling	s.t.
80	Alberigo Passalacqua	M&M Cycling	s.t.
81	Mikayil Grebinyuk	M&M Cycling	s.t.
82	Daniele Di Nucci	M&M Cycling	s.t.
83	Ahmad Haidar Anuawar	M&M Cycling	s.t.
84	Lars Tommersen	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
85	Gert Steegmans	Rabobank	s.t.
86	Michael Schär	Rabobank	s.t.
87	Eros Capecchi	Rabobank	s.t.
88	Michiel Van Aelbroeck	Rabobank	s.t.
89	Yoann Offredo	Rabobank	s.t.
90	Hervé Duclos-Lassalle	Rabobank	+ 21
91	Dmitri Kozontchuk	Rabobank	s.t.
92	Ramunas Navardauskas	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
93	Mirko Lorenzetto	M&M Cycling	s.t.
94	Matthieu Ladagnous	American Suzuki	s.t.
95	Allan Davis	American Suzuki	s.t.
96	Frank Picoreau	American Suzuki	s.t.
97	Benoît Vaugrenard	American Suzuki	s.t.
98	Kin-San Wu	American Suzuki	s.t.
99	Mathieu Heijboer	Rabobank	s.t.
100	Jean-Patrick Nazon	M&M Cycling	s.t.
101	Bradley McGee	American Suzuki	s.t.
102	Fabio Borghesi	American Suzuki	+ 25
103	Andreas Klier	American Suzuki	+ 27
104	Fumiyuki Beppu	M&M Cycling	s.t.
105	Juan-Antonio Flecha	Warner Brothers	+ 29
106	Sébastien Rosseler	Warner Brothers	s.t.
107	Sergei Kolesnikov	Warner Brothers	s.t.
108	Ahmed Ahmed	Warner Brothers	s.t.
109	Yannick Talabardon	Warner Brothers	s.t.
110	Jérôme Baugnies	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
111	Logan Hutchings	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
112	Aleksandr Mironov	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
113	Aleksandr Khatuntsev	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
114	Sven Nooytens	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
115	Tom Boonen	Warner Brothers	+ 31
116	Arnaud Coyot	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
117	Kevin Hulsmans	Warner Brothers	+ 32
118	Óscar Avelino	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
119	Wouter Weylandt	Warner Brothers	+ 33
120	Alberto Loddo	Lipton Ice Tea	+ 34
121	Christophe Kern	Philips - Hummel	+ 39
122	Matti Breschel	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
123	Maurice Schreurs	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
124	Angelo Furlan	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
125	Maxime Vantomme	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
126	Michael Mørkøv	Philips - Hummel	+ 40
127	Diego Ulissi	Philips - Hummel	+ 42
128	Martin Pedersen	Philips - Hummel	+ 43
129	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	THE CONTROL TEAM	+ 6'50
130	Sergey Sarkisov	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.
131	Peter Williams	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.
132	Ananias Ananias	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.

Young Rider Classification:

1	Sébastien Ivars	Wikipedia	14'31
2	Casper Jørgensen	Team B&O	+ 1
3	Tom Veelers	Team B&O	s.t.
4	Michael Faerk Christensen	Team B&O	s.t.
5	Morten Reckweg	Team B&O	s.t.
6	Thomas De Gendt	Team B&O	s.t.
7	Martijn Keizer	Wikipedia	+ 2
8	Maxime Bouet	Team B&O	s.t.
9	Ian Stannard	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
10	Jan Hopman	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.