Welcome to stage number five of this year's Tour of Qatar edition! We are set to see the last showdown of the Fast Men - or will a breakaway succeed again?
What we know is that everyone will try to squeeze out as many bonus seconds as possible, to get the best position before tomorrow's closing ITT. And as the gaps are still very small, any second could be decisive, so be prepared for some great action!
Today's stage is the shortest (except for the epilogue, of course), and we can expect a fast pace from the start line, which today is found at the Sealine Beach Resort, a few kilometers south of Mesaieed. This city was founded by Qatar Petroleum as a tanker terminal, and it was Qatar's first deepwater port. The roughly 40,000 inhabitants mainly work in the oil industry.
The road then leads us northwards for about 50km to reach Doha, passing the stage's sole intermediate sprint after 29.2km. Once arrived at Doha Corniche, the riders will enter a 6.5km circuit, which they will ride 11 times. Qatar's capital will then probably see this edition's last sprint finale.
We've got wind (about 25km/h, blowing in north-east direction) AND rain today, so the sprinters and their teams won't have an easy job keeping things together and building their trains.
We don't really need to talk about favorites, do we? They're the same since the first stage. However, Swift has been the fastest of the bunch so far on the stages with odd numbers (1, 3) - a good omen for the leader? Let's find out!
Well, we know this first picture by now. As soon as the riders leave the starting area, we get the first attacks! Well, maybe they're right, with this weather you never know what will happen... We can see Jungels Declerq Fejes Bol Riesebeek Korsaeth Kneisky Naud Ghyselinck
However, the peloton isn't happy with the situation and is riding at full speed. Which several riders do not like at all, and they fall behind very early! Among them is Van Heerden. Well, it definitely isn't Team Tinkoff's best race...
This group is already 3 minutes behind as we approach the intermediate sprint.
Kneisky leaves the others no chance, as he wins this intermediate sprint:
1. Kneisky
2. Ghyselinck
3. Declerq
The leading group was actually split, as not all were able to keep up with Kneisky's horrendous speed. Kneisky is still ahead, followed by
+ 7" Ghyselinck Declerq Naud Jungels
+ 15" Bol Korsaeth Fejes Riesebeek
+ 21"
Peloton, led by Prado
And it's a strange situation now, as the first few riders of the bunch have got a gap! Besides the riders from the second group - bar Bol who has managed to re-join the leaders - there are: Kochetkov Guardini Teunissen Marin Eislers Clarke Prado
And the peloton is already 42" back! What will happen next, given that the wind is still blowing, and riders are tired? Well, at least the rain has stopped...
Well, not much happened. The second group didn't insist and was soon caught, as was Bol who fell back again. Then we had yet another attack: Pluchkin once again needed to have some more action, attacked and closed up to the leaders. So we now have 6 men ahead, of whom Kneisky and Naud are the best flat riders. In case of a sprint, the race would be wide open, but Pluchkin with his great stamina and resistance could be a good bet, too.
The leaders soon reach Doha, and they cross the finish line for the first time with 2'13" on the peloton. 11 laps to go.
The peloton is led by the usual teams: Podium Ambition, eBuddy, Farfetch, Moser, Indosat, Aegon, Festina and Aker.
50 kilometers remaining, and the pace is increasing again! Some riders now seem to be really tired, and the peloton might break into pieces in the next few laps! Riders like Dennis, Stoltz or Sütterlin should get back to the front quickly, if they don't want to lose time today!
Five laps or 32.5km remaining, as Aegon ups the speed even more! van der Hoorn, Bauhaus, Frison and Dumoulin are doing a great job so far for Groenewegen, who is well protected - and far ahead of a possible split! The same holds for all other stage favorites, though.
The gap is down to 1'12", and the escapees are really looking tired. They don't seem to have a chance today, but we'll see.
And yet another attack from the peloton! This time it's Malori who catches the leading group quite quickly, and with his good flat riding adds a real threat to the breakaway group!
The pack is just 32" behind, though, and we still have 18km to go!
That's it for the BotD, they are reeled in by the eBuddy-Express with 15km to go. Vermeltfoort, Lampaert, Howson and Lammertink are pulling the pack, having all top sprinters around postion 30.
And we still have no official gaps, but the peloton is now really, really long!
And here we are, the pace was finally too high for some riders! Gaps are starting to open - can they be closed again? It could be a really bad thay for the aforementioned riders...
5km to go, and it's now Podium Ambition who are trying their luck once again! We can see a good presence of eBuddy and Moser riders as well, whereas most other sprinters are already pretty much on their own - several of them having teammates in one of the groups behind!
Just 1.5km left, and we can finally see again Bewley, who was pretty much absent in the last two finales! Let's see who else is there:
Baska
Bewley
Brus
Vermeltfoort
Kennaugh
Nelson
Grosu
Edmondson
Soupe
Groenewegen
Howard
Van Stayen
Ewan
Boeckmans
Barbier
Guardini
Coquard
van den Berg
Turek
Kemboi
Novardianto
Guerao
Kristoff
But we see Swift a bit further behind - it might be a hard piece of work to get back to the front!
Uh-oh, seems like Nelson has lost his sprinter under the red kite - or is this just a surprise attack? He does have a small gap, but Grosu is chasing hard! Behind him, we see Soupe, Van Stayen, Groenewegen and Bewley on one line, with Ewan and Kennaugh just behind! Guardini, Guerao, Coquard and Howard a little further back, but still in contention!
We enter the last 500 meters, and it once again seems to be a very close race, and even Swift seems to have a shot at the top spots again!
Van Stayen
Bewley
Kennaugh
Ewan
Grosu
Guardini
Groenewegen
Nelson
Guerao
Coquard
Howard
Swift
Boeckmans and Kristoff seem to be too far back! Of those ahead, Grosu, Van Stayen, Guardini, Guerao or Groenewegen could take the leader jersey with a win! Howard could do so, too, but he doesn't look strong enough today.
Only 300m left, and now it seems to be Van Stayen vs Grosu - for the win and for the jersey! Kennaugh isn't far away, though, and Bewley, Groenewegen and Ewan haven't thrown in the towel yet, either!
200m to go, as Grosu has taken back the lead - but Groenewegen, Bewley, Kennaugh, Van Stayen and Ewan won't let him win that easily! Guerao seems to have found another gear, too!
We're on the last 100 meters, and Grosu is still leading ahead of Groenewegen and Van Stayen! Kennaugh, Bewley, Guerao and Ewan now seem to be fighting for 4th only, and Swift tries to get past Howard to earn at least one bonus second!
Photo finish! The judges took a very close look, and then declared Eduard Grosu to be the winner of this fifth stage! Dylan Groenewegen had the highest speed on these final meters, but he just came short of beating the Romanian. Congratulations to Grosu and his team eBuddy, who provided great support to their leader today!
Michael Van Stayen gets his second podium in a row, as he comes in third! Peter Kennaugh snatches 4th from Oscar Guerao on the final centimeters, ahead of Sam Bewley and Caleb Ewan.
Andrea Guardini, Bryan Coquard and Leigh Howard complete today's Top 10, with a disappointing Ben Swift only getting 11th and losing both the GC and point jersey.
Behind him, we have
12. Boeckmans
13. Dakteris
14. Kristoff
15. Kemboi
16. Baska
17. Lander
18. Brus
19. Ji
20. Nelson
Today we're back to business as usual, as Eduard Grosu makes three podium appearances - stage win, yellow jersey, and points jersey. Gasper Katrasnik keeps the young rider's jersey, by a mere 3" on Ewan. Aker - MOT keeps the lead in the team standings before the final stage. However, there are still 16 teams with the same time, due to a very surprising jury decision. We did see splits today, and some riders came in more than 3 minutes after the winner - yet the jury decided to award the same time to every single rider. Have they forgotten their stopwatches at home today, or why do they decide such strange things?
Well, maybe to keep the GC a bit more interesting, as riders like Dennis, Sütterlin or Stoltz would have fallen completely out of contention. Even so, we can see that Grosu has a margin of 59" on tomorrow's biggest stage favorites. Even Coquard, the strongest TTer among the sprinters, is already 38" back. What will happen tomorrow? Can Grosu still be defeated? He surely has a good shot at winning this year's Tour of Qatar, but we'll see.
In the points standings, we wouldn't expect any changes, as the leaders probably won't get any points tomorrow, and the TT specialists are clearly too far behind.
The young rider competition will be highly interesting, though, as Katrasnik has just 3" left on Ewan, and Kemboi, Leung and S. K. Andersen are still just 25" respectively 27" behind. Stay tuned for a nice fight!
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