As usual, this year’s Tour of Qatar was a race for those who appreciate bike racing for itself, almost as a form of art. Year after year, a large proportion of the television audience for the Tour de France is made up of housewives and pensioners who tune in purely to enjoy the country’s scenery. This was not a race for them.
However, for fans of bike racing, it did begin to give a little hint about what we might expect to see in the coming months, with eyes turned in particular towards the classics.
Changing Of The Guard?
Casting your eyes down the top few riders in the general classification, the thing that stands out compared to previous editions is the lack of established classics riders. Of course Tom Boonen wasn’t riding, but two of his main rivals in recent years, Fabian Cancellara and Juan Antonio Flecha, find themselves outside the top 40.
In their place we find a number of BMC riders (admittedly aided by an impressive TTT performance). Greg Van Avermaet surely has to step up and challenge for a major classic this year, while Taylor Phinney and Adam Blythe will also be names to look out for in what will be a strong BMC line-up come spring.
The versatile British duo of Luke Rowe and Geraint Thomas have also ridden well this week, with the latter in particular will be looking to carry this form into the Classics, especially the Tour of Flanders.
Tony Gallopin is also maturing into an extremely versatile rider, and might also be looking for a decent ride in Flanders.
Two slightly older riders, Niki Terpstra and Zdenek Stybar have also found themselves in decent GC positions. Perhaps this could be the year that Terpstra can finally step out of the shadow of Tom Boonen. Stybar, now onto his third season on the road and with a few impressive performances such as at Les Quatre Jours de Dunkerque, could be a good back up in some of the hillier classics.
As for the sprinters, Barry Markus has been an absolute revelation this week and was unlucky not to claim a stage win along the way. The young Dutchman fully deserves his second place in the sprints classification after a race where he has been able to place himself among the world’s best sprinters for the first time in his career.
Disappointing Italians
Italians have been waiting for a little while for a young sprinter to emerge as the heir to Alessandro Petacchi. However over the last couple of years, a whole of host of promising young pretenders have emerged.
But this race proved that all of them have a little way to go yet before they will be consistent challengers at the highest level. In my preview for this race I had expected them to be able to challenge the likes of Cavendish, but Guardini, Viviani, and Fortin were rarely well-positioned to be able to challenge in the finale and could only muster four top-tens between them in the whole race.
Admittedly this tally may have been higher had Sacha Modolo not broken his wrist in a fall in stage one, but questions still remain over what these prodigies can achieve if they don’t toughen up in a compact aggressive peloton, with everyone fighting to get to the front in the big races.
Omega Pharma-Quickstep Are No HTC. Yet…
We all know by now that Mark Cavendish will win big races, lead out train or no lead out train. He proved that last year when he was largely left to his own devices at Sky. However, he went to OPQS so that he no longer had to spend the final 5km finding the best wheel, but could have a reliable train that could drop him off at 200m to go time and time again.
This support was simply not there for three of Cavendish’s four wins this week. On stage three he was ironically left to sit on the back of the Sky train before jumping of Boasson Hagen’s back wheel. Stage four saw him isolated again, and was close to coming down after a touch of handlebars in front of him with 500m to go. For the final stage, the team was able to maintain some semblance of control, but were overhauled by Cannondale with 8km to go and were never seen again. Here Cavendish was again isolated and was again almost brought down with 500m before miraculously sprinting from about 30th place to take the win.
Admittedly stage five did show some promise that OPQS could supply a decent lead-out train, with Niki Terpstra delivering the former world champion for the win, although perhaps not dropping him off at quite the top speed he would have liked.
Then again, it’s only February and the HTC lead out train did not develop overnight. There’s plenty of time for OPQS to practice and improve.
Women’s Race = Exciting? Men’s Race = Boring?
The idea that women’s racing can be just as, if not more, exciting than men’s racing is by no means a new idea, but comparing the ladies’ and men’s editions of the Tour of Qatar this year provides yet more ammunition against those who dismiss women’s bike racing as ‘boring’.
While the men’s race was almost completely intact when it came to the finish of each stage, and with much of the final GC decided by the team time trial, the women’s race was ripped apart by the wind and almost every stage featured exciting echelon racing with small elite groups coming to the finish together. The fight for the gold jersey required much more than a fast finish, but also demanded that the winner had the tactical nouse and the strength to be able to ride successfully in the wind, things which eventual winner Kirsten Wild could combine.
Student Cyclist 