The Tour of Qatar wraps up with a 4k epilogue. Not a lot of GC tension with Gaviria and Grosu look locked into the top 2 spots and Kragh Andersen the heavy favorite to take the last spot. Likely some movement further down the GC top 10 but the big focus will be on the stage win where Andersen hopes to pull of his third win on the trot. Aker needs a win after a disastrous race for Groenewegen.
Andersen is the favorites with the rest of last year’s top 5 right behind him.
The First 91 Riders
Overview
30 riders gained at least 1 second during the race and 10 riders start the day within 1 minute of the lead. Of the 162 riders who didn’t gain time only 2 lost time, so all the rest sit 1’20 down on Gaviria. Their performance today will dictate their GC position as well as the result of the team’s competition and young rider competitions. We’ll save the top 10 for more extensive coverage and split the other 182 into two groups. The first 91 includes only 1 of the top contenders - Chavanne who started the day in 155th.
Recap
Erdenebat sets the first serious time at 4’26, displacing Heidemann from the hot seat by 7 seconds.
Krul, Brunel, and Rekita all come close but all end up 1 second down, in that order. Good early times for JURA in the team’s competition.
Tanfield goes a little better matching Erdenenbat’s time but sitting in second on fractions.
Vernon joins his teammates on 1 second down.
Riding just ahead of Chavanne, Yatsevich beats the best time, going ahead on fractions.
But Chavanne does his job and takes over the lead by 3 seconds. JURA with 4 in the top 8.
Thomas becomes the 6th rider on 4 seconds but gets to the top of the list which puts him 4th overall right now (behind Chavanne, Yatsevich and Erdenebat).
Razumov goes 3 seconds slower than Chavanne, giving Tinkoff both the lower podium steps. Kukrle joins the crew on 4 seconds, but is the best of them, 5th.
Larsen bumps both Tinkoff riders down a step and takes over 2nd, 2 seconds down on Chavanne. Lidl also in on the team’s competition.
Christodoulos puts in a great rider for Cedevita and takes over 2nd.
The World Champion is mostly known for longer efforts but he takes 6th on 3 seconds. He is joined on that time by Zakarin, Tinkoff sitting 4, 5, 6 now.
Zakarin is the last top 10 time in this group
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Chavanne sets the best time.
Würtz shows off his World Champion's jersey.
Hot Seat
Starting Slot
Name
Time
Improvement
192
Bereznyak
4'36
-
190
Heidemann
4'33
0'03
183
Erdenebat
4'26
0'07
157
Yatsevich
4'26
0'00
155
Chavanne
4'23
0'03
Standings with 91 Riders Finished
Spoiler
The Next 91 Riders
Overview
This group contains the remaining stars in this discipline, Ganna in 70th starts just ahead of Leung (68th) while Andersen, sitting in 39th, will have the advantage of knowing the time to beat.
Novardianto is in 30th and the first rider with time bonuses, so towards the end of this group we will begin to get a sense of how far up the GC the epilogue specialists can move.
Recap
Japanese Champion Matsuda completed his development at McCormick last year, his first big test goes well as he moves into 2nd, 2 seconds down on Chavanne (same time as Christodoulos and Larsen). This time makes Matsuda favorite to take the young rider jersey.
German Champion Sütterlin goes 1 second better than the Japanese and is the new 2nd place and the first man within a second of the leader.
As the parade of national titlist continue, Spanish Champion Gonzalez Salas does even better taking over 2nd also 1 second down. A nice way to impress your new manager. Slovenian Champion Groselj can’t keep the pattern going, he comes in 4th, best of the riders on 2 seconds. Cedevita now sitting 4th and 6th as their team’s challenge takes shape.
The 5th straight top time by a national champion goes to Hayter who matches Groselj for time but takes over 4th place from him. Ganna is on the course now.
And he betters Chavanne, same time but ahead on the scoreboard, but his time only stands briefly as Leung goes slightly faster to take over the hot seat.
National champions now hold the top 9 spots on the leader board with 7 of the 9 going in the last 20 or so riders.
Greek National Champion Vlatos makes it 10 out of 10 for national champions by taking over 6th, 3 seconds down.
Hansen, who is not the national champion, spoils the party, taking over 6th from Vlatos. cycleYorkshire, King Power and Oxxo-Frisby all have two in the top 10 now, Cedevita have been pushed down.
The new kid on the block, Herregodts, also cracks the top 10, 4th for him, 2 seconds down. King Power sitting in 1st, 4th, and 11th now.
Andersen is next home and the three-peat is on, he is 1 second faster than Leung.
Goldstein goes into 8th 4 seconds down.
He is the last contender before we get into the riders with a time gap. Novardianto loses 12 seconds, there are 49 riders more than 1 second better than that today so he is going well down the GC.
Groenewegen loses 16 seconds, he only gained 1 sprint bonus second, he will not finish in the top 50. Good thing it looks like Andersen will win the stage for Aker today.
Novardianto remains the best among the guys who gained time earlier until we get to Kemboi, he started the day in 19th with 6 bonus seconds.
He comes in 5th on 2 seconds (which where he finished last year). He is the new GC leader by 4 seconds.
Korsaeth is the next one with a chance to impact the GC, he started the day with 10 seconds in hand. He loses 6 seconds in the epilogue; he ends up fractions behind Kemboi in the GC.
None of the rest in this group are good enough to threaten the GC top 10. The top 3 on GC as we get to the final riders are Kemboi, Korsaeth and Andersen.
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Gonzalez Salas shows off his Fastned Spanish National title jersey.
Xero have sprung for a snazzy matching back wheel for Ganna’s TT bike.
Andersen finishes with the best time once again.
Hot Seat
Starting GC
Name
Time
Improvement
155
Chavanne
4'23
-
70
Ganna
4'23
0'00
68
Leung
4'23
0'00
39
Andersen
4'22
0'01
Standings with 182 Riders Finished
Spoiler
The Final 10 Riders
Overview
With 32 and 23 seconds of cushion respectively, on 3rd, and over a minute on the virtual GC leaders Gaviria and Grosu should be safe enough. Most of the rest of the top 10 aren’t great in this discipline and could drop down although 7th and above have extra cushion versus the rest as they are all within 45 seconds of the leader. Manninen and Kragh Andersen are the best of this group on the TT bike and and will hope to move up.
Recap
Kanter lose 22 seconds, he started the day with 20 seconds on Andersen, he drops behind at least the current top 3 and Leung.
Mannien loses 9 seconds, 45th on the day but good enough to make him the new GC leader.
Samolenkov loses 19 seconds, 10 to Mannien, he had 7 seconds on Mannien to start the day he will is 2nd on the virtual GC.
Halvorsen (+0’22 on the day) had more cushion on the Finn and he uses all of it, he had 14 seconds of cushion and uses 13 of it. He is new GC leader.
Hayakawa was a surprise package in the sprints, no surprise on the TT bike though, 187th on the day +0’56.
Into the top 5 at the start of the day, Jakobsen comes in at +0’21, he is the new GC leader.
Kragh Andersen loses 12 seconds and displaces Jakobsen from the GC lead.
Aniolkowski doesn’t come close to protecting his podium spot. He loses 37 seconds and will end up 7th on the GC, still a great race for the PCT team.
Grosu just needs to finish less than 35 seconds worse than Andersen on the stage to hold onto 2nd in GC. +0’19 is his time, 2nd place is his unless Gaviria loses another 9 seconds.
He does not, he goes 2 seconds better than Grosu, 89th on the Stage but more than enough to make him the winner of the 2024 Tour of Qatar. The winers of this race are a who’s who of great mangame sprinters. Gaviria will be proud to add his name to the list after finishing 3rd, 3rd and 2nd in the last 3 editions. He also wins the points jersey.
Andersen wins the stage, the top 5 are identical to last year except Leung and Chavanne swap. Andersen also moves up to 11th on GC.
Kemboi’s epilogue is good enough to move him up to 9th on GC, but just another 10 sprint bonus seconds and he would have been top 5.
Matsuda does win best young rider and King Power also take the team title by 4 seconds on Lidl and Oxxo-Frisby.
Tour of Qatar 
