Another week in the top for Valverde, his fifth. Purito jumps from fifth to forth, ahead of the World Champion. Thanks to his 4th place in Mallorca, and a top10 in Cadel Evans Race, Michal Kwiatkowski gets into the top20 for the first time
After a bad 2015, Arnaud Demare has started the 2016 season with renewed hopes, and has just won Tour of Dubai, after finishing second in the last stage, which gave him the exact amount of bonus seconds to overtake Marcus Burghardt in GC, whose team, BMC, had won the inaugural TTT.
With the new system of bonus seconds for this race (which also will be implanted in Tour of Qatar), that gives 25 seconds to stage winner, 15 to second, 10 to third, 7 to fouth, 5 to fifth, 3 to sixth, 2 to seventh and 1 to eighth, Arnaud Demare was able to overcome the deficit that his team had in the TTT.
Demare won the first road stage ahead of Groenewegen and Modolo, who won the next day, ahead of Pelucchi and Demare.
Entering the final stage, Burghardt was leading with 3 seconds on his own team-mate (thanks to bonus time), 10 second on Guardini, who had finished in the top6 in both previous stages, 14 on Demare and 20 on Modolo.
Marco Bandiera surprised the sprinters, and took the win from the breakaway, but behind him Arnaud Demare was able to finish second, which gave him the overall win
Sylvain Chavanel has won one of the only French stage races that he hadn’t won yet, after doing an impressive timetrial to St Raby, beating riders as Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot
With Nacer Bouhanni being the only decent sprinter in the race, he was expected to win 3-4 stages, but surprisingly he didn’t won any. In the first two stages, FDJ rider Kevin Reza beat Bouhanni first, and Gautier in the second stage. Bouhanni’s team-mate, Christophe Laporte won in a superb sprint the third stage, the last one who would be decided in a bunch sprint.
Julien el Fares and Dimitri Claeys took stages four and fifth, with Bouhanni being the first of the peloton in both stages.
In the time-trial, Romain Bardet was the first of the favourites to set a good time, only to be beaten by Thomas Voeckler, who made a great TT, which was not expected at all. Then Chavanel would go and destroy everybody’s time
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Sylvain Chavanel
Bretagne - Séché Environnement
16h47'07
2
Thomas Voeckler
Team Europcar
+ 13
3
Romain Bardet
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 18
4
Domenico Pozzovivo
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 23
5
Thibaut Pinot
FDJ
+ 25
6
Cyril Gautier
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 31
7
Jonathan Hivert
Bretagne - Séché Environnement
s.t.
8
Jérèmy Roy
FDJ
+ 32
9
Christophe Laporte
Cofidis, Solutions Crédits
+ 36
10
Christophe Riblon
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 37
Herald Sun Tour
Michael Albasini reigns in Australia. The Swiss rider won the final stage with end in Arthur’s Seat in his way to win the GC.
Albasini’s team-mate, Luke Durbridge won the 3-km prologue. The two first sprints were won by Nikias Arndt. Michael Albasini would go onto winning the last two stages, the first one in a sprint, and the Arthur’s Seat stage
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Michael Albasini
Orica-GreenEDGE
12h31'20
2
Bruno Pires
Roth - Skoda
+ 27
3
Tomasz Marczyński
Torku Seker Spor
+ 44
4
Owain Doull
ONE Pro Cycling
+ 57
5
Wout van Aert
Vastgoedservice - Golden Palace
+ 1'03
6
Gregory Brenes
Jamis - Hagens Berman
+ 1'05
7
Damiano Cunego
NIPPO - Vini Fantini
+ 1'09
8
Davide Rebellin
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
+ 1'11
9
Patrick Bevin
Avanti Racing Team
+ 1'13
10
Matthew Goss
ONE Pro Cycling
+ 1'48
GP Costa degli Etruschi
Peter Kennaugh succeed Manuel Belletti as the winner of GP Costa degli Etruschi, when the British rider of Team Sky won a 4-way sprint ahead of Stijn Devolder, Sebastian Henao and Dries Devenyns
In the route there was a little climb in the final circuit, in which Devolder attacked together with Kennaugh, while Sebastian Henao and Dries Devenyns were already at the front, as they were part of the breakaway
No changes in this week's top10, as no one of those riders raced this week. Next race should shake up a little the ranking, as we will have the second WT race of the season, Tour of Qatar
Second WT race of the season, and this one is a race for the sprinters. With the new bonus time that were already tested in Dubai Tour, the GC should be for the best sprinter of the race.
Here we have almost every top sprinter in the world.
Rider
Team
Peter Sagan
Tinkoff-Saxo
Mark Cavendish
MTN-Qhubeka
Elia Viviani
Team Sky
John Degenkolb
Team Giant-Alpecin
Caleb Ewan
Orica-GreenEDGE
Alexander Kristoff
Team Katusha
Arnaud Demare
FDJ
Fernando Gaviria
Etixx - Quick-step
Edward Theuns
Trek Factory Racing
Matteo Pelucchi
IAM Cycling
Andrea Guardini
Astana Pro Team
Davide Cimolai
Lampre-Merida
Wouter Wippert
Team Cannondale - Garmin
Matteo Trentin
Etixx - Quick-step
Tom Boonen
Etixx - Quick-step
Moreno Hofland
Team LottoNL - Jumbo
Stage 1
As usually, strong wind joins the riders for the first stage. Nothing really happens during the stage until the last 5 kilometres, where the sprint is being prepared.
Matthew Brammeier makes a great rely, taking with him only Cavendish and Viviani. They have created a gap that should give them the chance to fight for the win alone
Brammeier has been pulling for a while, and he can’t properly lead-out Cavendish, so Viviani launches his sprint seeing that the other sprinters are coming fast
Elia Viviani wins stage 1 in Tour of Qatar, taking 25 bonus seconds, which puts him on top of the GC
John Degenkolb, Caleb Ewan, Mark Cavendish and Wouter Wippert complete the top5
The second stage started with winds over 70km/h, which result in a completely broken bunch from the very beginning
Then, things got calm, before the group reached the 20km mark, in which the group exploded
Meanwhile, the only rider who managed to get into the breakaway today, Lotto Soudal rider, and former Dutch champion, Pim Ligthart had more than one minute with 6 km to go
The group with the sprinters has only 25 riders now, within the last 3 km, and we see Mark Cavendish dropped, and also Gaviria
Pim Ligthart makes it, and takes both the stage win and the overall lead
Behind him, around 40 seconds later, a group of 4 arrives, with Viviani, Sagan, Degenkolb and Kristoff.
We see clear gaps between lots of riders, but the jury decides to give around 100 riders the same time as Viviani, who finished second.
Tomorrow is the time-trial in Losail's racing circuit, so actual gaps are likely to be drastically changed, with the likes of Fabian Cancellara, Luis Leon Sanchez, Adriano Malori and Michal Kwiatkowski fighting for the stage and a decent gap that might give them the GC
Yes, he was. He should a great chance to have a good GC in this race, with that gap that he has created. I think is safe to say that he will finish at least in top10 in GC
In the third stage we have the 11-km timetrial around Losail who should be decisive for the GC. All the sprinters will try to do the best TT of his life, in order to be close to the specialists, if they want to win the overall.
Alex Dowsett was the first rider to set a time who could be a winner one, but quickly his team-mate Adriano Malori improved his time by 1 second. Fabian Cancellara was unable to take the first place, and his time was 3 seconds slower than Malori’s.
But the big surprise came when Luis Leon Sanchez beat all the previous times, and he would go onto winning the stage.
But we still have the sprinters in contention for the GC. The best of them was John Degenkolb, who was able to finish in the top10 of the stage within 10 seconds of Luisle. Neither of Viviani and Ligthart had a good TT, with both of them losing around 1 minute. So John Degenkolb is the new leader race, with 12 second on Luisle, and more important, 17 on Viviani
Back to the desert. For the forth stage we have on the menu another possible sprint. The sprinters’ team will make sure that the breakaway doesn’t get away with the stage.
The breakaway is caught before the 10km mark, and the sprinters’ teams started to lead-out the sprint
We see Sagan, Kristoff, Viviani well placed, but no sign of race leader John Degenkolb inside the 30 first riders with 4 km to the finish. Not good looking for the German rider.
Pim Ligthart tries to surprise the sprinters before the last km, but he didn’t had the legs for it, and is quickly overtaken when the sprint is launched. In the center, Peter Sagan is set to win by the first time with the Rainbow Jersey, but Viviani is not letting him do it easy.
But finally, Sagan wins! The Slovak rider takes his first ever win in Tour of Qatar, and matches the World Tour wins tally of Tom Boonen, Purito Rodriguez, Rudi Altig, Felice Gimondi and Gerrie Knetemann, with 35 wins
Viviani finish second, with Kristoff beating Cavendish for third in the very last moment. Degenkolb will keep the leader’s jersey with only two seconds on Elia Viviani. Sagan is up to eighth place, 21 seconds down
Only two stages left in this Tour of Qatar, and this one is obviously a flat one again. The sprinters will fight for another win and also looking for those bonus seconds that could give them the chance to win the race.
Another day with strong winds, that cause the group to split in several pieces inside the last 20 km, with riders as Fernando Gaviria, Edward Theuns and Andrea Guardini who were caught in the split
When the sprint was being led-out, in a main group which only had around 30 riders left, Caleb Ewan tried to surprise the sprinters, attacking in the 2km mark.
The young Australian rider, was still in the lead after crossing the 1km banner, with Kristoff and Cavendish closing on his wheel
As expected, the Aussie couldn’t keep up with the high rhythm and blew up. Meanwhile, Mark Cavendish was now in the lead, with Kristoff being the only one close to him
Kristoff clearly made a mistake by trying to overtake Cavendish by his right side, only to find that he had no space there, so the “Manx-Missile” took the win in stage 5
With only one stage left, the GC has close up, and tomorrow we will have a thrilling finish in Doha. John Degenkolb leads with 7 seconds on Viviani, 11 on Cavendish and 16 on Sagan
