Boonen scorches to victory in Doha

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The eleventh Tour of Qatar got underway this afternoon and it was Omega-Pharma Quick Step's Tom Boonen who came out on top in stage one, leaving enough in the tank to pull clear of a bunched field up the finishing straight in a time of 3:11:22. Britain’s Adam Blythe (BMC) finished in second with Slovakia’s Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) in third.

The flat desert plains of Qatar have been a happy hunting ground in the past for Boonen, with the 31-year-old Belgian tasting victory here in 2006, 2008 and 2009. He takes possession of the golden jersey for overall race leader and immediately stated afterwards that he hopes to keep it after tomorrow’s team trial.

“We’re going to do everything possible to keep the jersey in the team time trial tomorrow,” he said. “I will push the team as hard as I can and we will see how we do. This is a race that we always want to do well in as a team and so far it’s looking good.”

The 12:35pm start meant that the field began the race at the warmest part of the day. With temperatures in the mid 70s and humidity higher than normal for this time of year the riders were thankful that the most talked about of the elements here – the seasonal high winds – had died down considerably from those seen at the Ladies Tour last week. The wind would be a factor, as it always is in Qatar, but not a decisive one.

Speaking to some of the riders beforehand, they almost all predicted that the most decisive factor could actually be how the teams manage their new line-ups. Many of them said that a lot of the teams would be treating the race partly as a fact-finding mission. With many riders swapping teams in the off season and many of them making their seasonal debuts, in most cases tactics had been formulated on paper but not yet honed in race conditions.

“The race is a good opportunity for teams to work on new combinations,” said GreenEdge’s Robbie McEwen (AUS). “Especially since a lot of guys have moved teams. Today is the first chance to test those new combinations and it’s pretty unclear how things will turn out.”

In the end it was the experienced course specialist Boonen who rose to the top, a victory for continuity. Boonen has been with Quick Step, in its various guises, for almost a decade, and of all the riders out there his surroundings on and off the road were the most familiar.

From the very start of the race Lotto Belisol’s Adam Hansen (AUS) set off like a scalded cat, putting on a brazen display of early pace that saw him over six minutes clear of the field at the 20km mark. He cut a solitary figure amid the desolation of the landscape as he powered along the arid and flat roads into a headwind for the first half of the race. He kept his pace up impressively but by 70km the gap had been halved.

The chasing peloton had split in two groups following a minor crash, but by the 80km mark the first of the two groups had caught up with Hansen, 16 seconds clear of the chasing pack. By now the riders had turned for home and were benefiting from the respite of a tail wind. The pace was well and truly on – this reporter was travelling at 60km/h in a press car and the field were closing on us, which gives a clear indication of the impressive speeds the riders were reaching. The field had now merged into one for the final sprint finish, which was a real test of stamina and strength after an uncompromising 140km in the wide open spaces of eastern Qatar.

“The last part of the stage was very quick,” said Boonen. “There was a tail wind pushing us off the main road and then the last two or three km with the two roundabouts was very fast. The only nervy part was when the crosswinds increased and there were two separate groups for about 30km, but after that it all got quiet again and everyone came back together.

“I am delighted to have won but it’s too early to tell whether I can win the GC on Friday. If the weather stays good like this it will be the time trial and then four more sprints so it will be hard. I hope that the conditions change a bit so we can have some natural selection but if it’s like this then every sprinter is a natural opponent.”

BMC’s Blythe put a disappointing Tour Down Under behind him and overcame a self-admitted crisis of confidence to finish second. The 22-year-old British rider was joined in the top ten by four other young riders, and he recognises the challenge he faces to hold onto the white jersey.

“I was close to winning but couldn’t quite find a second push to get me there,” he said. “But second is better than third isn’t it, so I can’t really complain. I was in the second echelon, which wasn’t too stressful. We could always see them as they were only about 10 seconds ahead. I was just trying to save as much energy as possible as we all knew that we would come back together.

“For me [the team time trial] tomorrow will be about hanging on. I’ll be doing two or three second turns maximum. I won’t be pulling big turns as I’m not that kind of rider. I hope to hang on to the white jersey tomorrow but there are a lot of strong teams here so we will have to see what happens.

“Coming here I was a little bit worried as my confidence was low after the Tour Down Under. But I’ve done well in the first stage and things are coming right and starting to work. Now I have a second place I know that I am getting closer to where I want to be. Everyone has come here pretty fresh, so this first stage isn’t a massive indication of where we all are. I think things will become a bit clearer tomorrow.”

The build up to the race had been dominated by an illness to Mark Cavendish, who was only confirmed as a definite starter for his Team Sky debut at 10am on the morning of the race. Cavendish had been suffering from a fever but appeared lively enough during the preliminaries. He eventually finished in 51st place and will be hopeful of building on that as the week progresses.

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