Tour of Qatar - SPOILER

moray_gub

Brian B wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Hopefully Cav will have enough in the tank for another go later on. I hope this race doesn't turn out to be a disaster like his 07 TdF.

I hope he does have a disaster. It may actually give him something real to winge about. Given your location 'yellow peril'I know you are probably a big fan(and rightly so given his exploits) but IMO he comes over in interviews like a spoiled teenager and I cannot really summon any enthusiasum for him. I hope Boonen actually beats him on a head to head just to bring him down a notch.

You are right watching him at the end of todays stage whinging like a little girl for his helper what an ars*hole.

MG

stefrees

Moray Gub wrote:

Brian B wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Hopefully Cav will have enough in the tank for another go later on. I hope this race doesn't turn out to be a disaster like his 07 TdF.

I hope he does have a disaster. It may actually give him something real to winge about. Given your location 'yellow peril'I know you are probably a big fan(and rightly so given his exploits) but IMO he comes over in interviews like a spoiled teenager and I cannot really summon any enthusiasum for him. I hope Boonen actually beats him on a head to head just to bring him down a notch.

You are right watching him at the end of todays stage whinging like a little girl for his helper what an ars*hole.

MG

i wouldnt say he was whinging for no reason, end of what looked like a hard stage into wind he seemed to have no one about giving him any sort of drink or anything. he seemed to have the edge of boonen there though, another great performance by cervelo and in particular lloydy

liversedge

le patron wrote:

just tuned in too late, was it a proper job Boonen v Cav sprint ?

they went head to head, It looked to me like Cav had Boonen but also looked like he might catch a kerb and Boonen either sat up because he was beat or thought Cav was going into the kerb ... or maybe a bit of both?

greeny12

It seemed almost like Boonen realised that he'd nearly put Cav over the kerb and then sat up as a way of saying sorry.

Funny, with sprinters they usually cross the line first then apologise!! Maybe Boonen was thinking he might get DQd or demoted, thus losing time bonuses - it was a pretty blatant obstruction...

Either way I'd say Cav was the quicker of the two men on this occasion....

stagehopper

They lost pictures from 4.5k out to about 800 metres from the line and only had quite a low down head on shot from behind the finish line for that last bit. Pity because the racing for the 20km previous had been superb - Cervelo again doing some major damage in the windy conditions after the initial 7 man break had been reeled in. A few fights, a few crashes as they piled on the pressure and split the peloton apart. At one stage they dropped Cav, forming a leading bunch of 12 that had 6 Cervelo riders plus Boonen. Got upto 22 seconds lead before slowly being reeled in with around 5km to go by the 25 or so riders still chasing hard which included Lampre and Columbia.

Looked to me that Boonen was shot - he'd done a lot of riding with Cervelo trying to make the final break stay away and he wobbled into Cav and it killed his momentum (and also sent Cav almost crashing out over the pavement).

Kléber

Three wins out of four for the Brits.

blazing_saddles

A ripper!
Went from deadly dull to edge of the seat, in the blink of an eye.

Mr Dish had a very narrow escape with that curb.
Eric Zabel been hired as his soigneur?
Hollywood wives at the end.

3 crashes, a flock of sheep and loads and loads of sand.

pottssteve

Bugger,
I watched it for an hour and they still had 30km to go when I was so bored I decided to go for a ride! Hopefully catch the highlights somewhere...

moray_gub

stefrees wrote:

Moray Gub wrote:

Brian B wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Hopefully

You are right watching him at the end of todays stage whinging like a little girl for his helper what an ars*hole.

MG

i wouldnt say he was whinging for no reason, end of what looked like a hard stage into wind he seemed to have no one about giving him any sort of drink or anything. he seemed to have the edge of boonen there though, another great performance by cervelo and in particular lloydy

i never said he was whinging for no reason but it came across as pathetic, as Brian B says he needs to wait until he has something real to whinge about.


MG

stagehopper

pottssteve wrote:

Bugger,
I watched it for an hour and they still had 30km to go when I was so bored I decided to go for a ride! Hopefully catch the highlights somewhere...

Midnight on Eurosport.

moray_gub

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Bartali wrote:

Good for him ... I thoght he was out the back?

I look forward to the highlights!

A ripper!
Went from deadly dull to edge of the seat, in the blink of an eye.

Mr Dish had a very narrow escape with that curb.
Eric Zabel been hired as his soigneur?
Hollywood wives at the end.

3 crashes, a flock of sheep and loads and loads of sand.

Watched it on Sky Player on line for first time today was great picture and no freezing, well apart from the last 4k........wait wasnt that...........:-)

MG

pottssteve

Thank you, stagehopper - but that's 8am over here and I'll be at work.

Youtube?

Anonymous

Blimey, Cavendish nearly had a kerb incident there!

"Where's my helper?.. WHERE'S MY HELPER!?!?!?!"

Anonymous

Cavendish was ahead of Boonen when Boonen sat up IMO...

Yellow Peril

A good win.

On the Cav attitude, I'm not Manx and I don't know him personally but I know if you are a decent enough rider and can keep up (I'm not and I can't) you can ride out on a club run with him, Johnny Bellis, Peter Kennaugh et al whenever they are back on the Island. There are no airs or graces with these guys they are just talented young lads who are happy to ride with anyone who can stay the pace.

I doubt you could rub shoulders with the elite of other sports in that way and I can't imagine LA, Boonen or any of the other top riders still do that. However, I'm prepared to stand corrected on that.

DaveyL

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id= ... /feb05news

"Mark Cavendish, multiple stage winner in the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France in 2008, recorded his first win of the new year in the Tour of Qatar's fourth stage to Madinat Al Shamal. The Briton of Team Columbia-High Road thanked the man he beat - one of his top rivals, Tom Boonen.

"I want to thank Tom for opening the door again for me; it could have ended quite grimly. It was not like 'Cavendish one up on Boonen' because he could have easily had one up on me," Cavendish told Cyclingnews.

Columbia's sprint leader acknowledged that Boonen could have moved just slightly more to the right in the finish and left him with no space to pass; instead, Boonen kept his line straight down the road along the Gulf of Bahrain waterfront and finished the day in third, behind Cavendish and Heinrich Haussler."

takethehighroad

Yellow Peril wrote:

A good win.

On the Cav attitude, I'm not Manx and I don't know him personally but I know if you are a decent enough rider and can keep up (I'm not and I can't) you can ride out on a club run with him, Johnny Bellis, Peter Kennaugh et al whenever they are back on the Island. There are no airs or graces with these guys they are just talented young lads who are happy to ride with anyone who can stay the pace.

I doubt you could rub shoulders with the elite of other sports in that way and I can't imagine LA, Boonen or any of the other top riders still do that. However, I'm prepared to stand corrected on that.

I've seen pictures rattling around on Facebook with some of the Garmin team at a training camp riding with 'civvies', but I would say it's rare.

Simon Notley

Is this the first time that three Brits have won stages of a race at this level? I'm hardly a protour aficionado, so maybe its not that rare, but I can't think of any such occurenences recently...

timoid.

At what level? The Tour of Qatar is worth even less then the TdU.

redddraggon

Cav takes another stage.

millar time

Hammond 3rd, Lloyd 4th on GC. Cervelo Test team manage to get 6 riders in the top 10.

camerone

cant see any reports on web yet. was it Cav-v-Boonen sprint?

afx237vi

1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia-Highroad
2 Robert Förster (Ger) Team Milram
3 Heinrich Haussler (Ger) Cervélo TestTeam
4 Hans Dekkers (Ned) Garmin - Slipstream
5 Francesco Chicchi (Ita) Liquigas
6 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Team Katusha
7 Angelo Furlan (Ita) Lampre - N.G.C.
8 Kenny Van Hummel (Ned) Skil-Shimano
9 Roy Sentjens (Bel) Silence - Lotto
10 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step


Boonen started sprinting with 150m to go but sat up a long way before the line. Cavendish had already won it by that point... he was miles in front.

OffTheBackAdam

Miles in front and still pulling away!
Boonen sat up well before the line, lost 4 or 5 places.
Haussler got "Best Young Rider" by a couple of minutes.

aarw

can cervelo keep it up?

Yellow Peril

What a result!

Two Stages for Cav, a podium for Hammond, three riders in the top ten...

Not a bad week's work at all by the Brits