Tour of Qatar Stage 6: Cavendish wins overall in style, taking fourth stage in a row

Mark Cavendish has won the Tour of Qatar, and he did it in style, prevailing today in a bunch sprint in Doha to take his fourth successive stage victory in the race. Yauheni Hutarovich of AG2R La Mondiale finished second again today, as he had done yesterday, with Barry Markus of Vacansoleil-DCM third. There was a bit of a scare for the Manxman on his way to victory as he hit the deck when a rider ahead of him fell as the peloton was negotiating a roundabout.

"I tweeted this morning that I've won and crashed this stage before — the previous one — and the fact is I did both again," said Cavendish, who also won the points jersey, afterwards. "I was just going along after 15km, came to a roundabout not going hard, just riding.

"I was riding on someone's wheel and he just went down. He doesn't even know what happened. But, that's bike racing. It was a freak accident. I'm a bit banged up, but I'm OK. I am just kind of twisted, but we'll get it sorted."

It’s Cavendish’s second GC victory of his career, and  more prestigious one than the previous stage race he won, last year’s Ster ZLM Toer in the Netherlands. His victory is the sixth in Qatar by an Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider in eight years, four of those belonging to Tom Boonen, and Cavendish emulates the Belgian’s 2006 feat of winning four stages.

The team's record in this race wasn't lost on Cavendish. "I'm over the moon," he said. "We come here every year almost guaranteed an overall victory with Tom Boonen, but he's recovering from an injury. So it put a little bit of pressure on me and I was a bit nervous.

"But I'm really happy to get the win. The guys worked incredible here. They really looked after me so, so well here and delivered every single day. I am so happy and proud I can bring it home again for the team again.

"We've won Tour of Qatar six times, and I don't know how many stages, so I am happy to be a part of that."

Today’s sixth and final stage, covering 116 kilometres, went from the Sealine Beach Resort to finish at Doha Corniche with the skyscrapers of Qatar’s capital providing the backdrop to a ten-lap circuit along the waterfront, contrasting with the flat, featureless, desert terrain that characterises much of the race’s parcours.

With a lead of 15 seconds this morning, Cavendish’s prospects of taking the overall were unlikely to be threatened, nevertheless his Omega Pharma-Quick Step team kept the tempo high as the race approached its final 10 kilometres before other sprinters’ teams started jostling for position.

With Cannondale picking up the pace inside the final five kilometres, the peloton was beginning to get strung out with riders struggling to hang on at the back, before Sky, then Argos-Shimano, moved to the front.

Cavendish, sitting around 30 riders back on the left hand side of the road as the peloton passed the flamme rouge to signify 1 kilometre to go, momentarily seemed boxed in as individual riders started to rev up for the sprint, and also had to take quick action to evade a BMC rider who moved across his line.

No-one’s better than the former world champion at finding a way through in a chaotic bunch sprint, however, and Cavendish burst clear inside the closing metres to win from Hutarovich by half a wheel.

"It was kind of like Al Khor, actually," reflected Cavendish, referring to the finiah of Stage 4 on Wednesday. "I knew the wind was coming from the right, knew a gap was coming from the left. Same as when I won in 2009. The same tactics.

"The guys were going, and going, and going. Other teams started winding up with four laps to go. Still, it ended up the same way with one lap to go. It's a bit safer into the last lap and everyone's happy.

"The guys had been a bit used up for working for me all day and the entire race, so I knew I can kind of just go alone, can leave it late and come up the left side again.

"That's exactly what I did. I knew they would go right, and I could just use other leadouts to move up in the last 300 meters and jump on the left hand side."

Cavendish is the first British winner of the race, and three others got into the top ten - BMC Racing's Adam Blythe, who finished third, and the Team Sky pair of Luke Rowe and Geraint Thomas, respectively ninth and tenth.

Tour of Qatar Stage 5 result  
  
1  CAVENDISH Mark       OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP     2h 24' 31"
2  HUTAROVICH Yauheni   AG2R LA MONDIALE         All at same time
3  MARKUS Barry         VACANSOLEIL-DCM
4  BLYTHE Adam          BMC RACING TEAM
5  PHINNEY Taylor       BMC RACING TEAM
6  VAN HUMMEL Kenny     VACANSOLEIL-DCM
7  KRISTOFF Alexander   KATUSHA TEAM
8  EISEL Bernhard       SKY PROCYCLING
9  BOUHANNI Nacer       FDJ
10 BOIVIN Guillaume     CANNONDALE
11 COLBRELLI Sonny      BARDIANI VALVOLE-CSF INOX
12 KLUGE Roger          TEAM NETAPP-ENDURA
13 LADAGNOUS Matthieu   FDJ
14 BRAMMEIER Matt       CHAMPION SYSTEM
15 GALLOPIN Tony        RADIOSHACK LEOPARD
16 CANTWELL Jonathan    TEAM SAXO-TINKOFF
17 DOWNING Russell      TEAM NETAPP-ENDURA
18 GUARDINI Andrea      ASTANA PRO TEAM
19 VIVIANI Elia         CANNONDALE
20 KRUOPIS Aidis        ORICA GREENEDGE
  
Overall standings after Stage 5  
  
1  CAVENDISH Mark       OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP    15h 55' 20"
2  BOOKWALTER Brent     BMC RACING TEAM              + 00' 25"
3  PHINNEY Taylor       BMC RACING TEAM              + 00' 26"
4  BLYTHE Adam          BMC RACING TEAM              + 00' 30"
5  EISEL Bernhard       SKY PROCYCLING               + 00' 32"
6  VAN AVERMAET Greg    BMC RACING TEAM              + 00' 32"
7  SCHÄR Michael        BMC RACING TEAM              + 00' 35"
8  BOASSON HAGEN Edvald SKY PROCYCLING               + 00' 39"
9  ROWE Luke            SKY PROCYCLING               + 00' 40"
10 THOMAS Geraint       SKY PROCYCLING               + 00' 40"