Tour of Qatar, Stage 6 and Overall

February 10, Stage 6: Sealine Beach Resort - Doha Corniche 120km

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/tour-of-qatar-2012/stage-6/results)

On another day of high drama at the 2012 Tour of Qatar, promising French rider Arnaud Demare raced to the first professional victory of his career in the colours of FDJ-BigMat at the sixth and final stage. 20-year-old Demare came home ahead of Denis Galimzyanov (Katusha) and Rabobank’s 2011 winner Mark Renshaw, who put a frustrating week behind him with a podium finish on the final day.

Belgium’s Tom Boonen’s 15th place finish on the day was enough for him to win the overall GC and points classification and meant that he ended the day celebrating a fourth victory in this race, fully justifying his tag as the “King of the Desert”. Garmin-Barracuda’s Tyler Farrar finished as runner-up, 28 seconds behind Boonen, with Team Sky’s Juan Antonio Flecha five seconds further back in third.

This year’s race, as always, has been marred by a number of crashes and punctures and today was no different. With the riders finding their feet in new teams and with the flat nature of the course making for tight, fast and bunch finishes, bumps have become unavoidable.

The biggest casualty of the race was stage three and stage five winner Mark Cavendish (Team Sky), who came together with two other riders close to the finish and suffered a nasty fall that brought gashes to his legs and to his left shoulder. Cavendish was helped to his feet by his teammate and friend Bernie Eisel and bravely got on a spare bike and finished the stage.

Cavendish’s crash hindered a large proportion of the field in the finale, meaning that Demare’s decision to go for home early paid off. Earlier on the field had been helped by a considerable tail wind as they made their way from the Sealine Beach Resort to the Doha Corniche. Before the peloton’s arrival there a pack of seven riders broke away, building a lead that reached a peak gap of 2:20.

At the Doha Corniche the riders encountered 11 6km laps around the harbour side with the pack making relatively heavy weather of catching the group in front. They finally bridged the gap with just 15km to go, which provided the platform for yet another frantic bunch sprint to the line. Demare’s tactics proved shrewd as he crossed the line for what in the end was a cosy victory for the 2011 U23 road world champion.

"I was placed in ideal conditions in the last couple of kilometres with the help of my teammates," Demare said. "It's an amazing feeling. Tom Boonen and Tyler Farrar came to congratulate me. I have admired them in front of my TV for so long."

Elsewhere, a serious verbal altercation took place after the finish between Rabobank’s main leadout rider Graeme Brown and RadioShack-Nissan’s Robert Wagner. Brown accused Wagner of bumping him repeatedly and the two men had to be dragged apart as tempers flared on what was the hottest day of the race so far.

But the week has undoubtedly belonged to Boonen, who claimed both the golden and silver jerseys by using a combination of his considerable experience here and a fitness edge that he honed at the Tour de San Luis. His fourth victory in the race tasted especially sweet, as he told Cyclingnews.

“All four wins here have been hard,” he said. “If you win four times it’s 24 days of hard labour. But this was nice because there were a lot of good riders here. Two days ago the hard stage we had was really like a classic. Normally after a hard stage you can break it up a bit in the following ones but this year it has been a man to man fight. We controlled the last two stages as a team so I am happy. I think that this year has definitely been a very important one.”

Boonen’s performances and those of his principal accomplice Gert Steegmans meant that Omega Pharma-Quick Step were able to add the team GC to the two jerseys he won. The battle for the young riders white jersey was won by Garmin-Barracuda’s Ramunas Navardauskas. It was a fitting reward, alongside Farrar’s second place, for his team, whose consistency throughout the week shone through.

Stage 6 Results

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ-BigMat	2:20:44
2	Denis Galimzyanov (Rus) Katusha
3	Mark Renshaw (Aus) Rabobank
4	Roger Kluge (Ger) Project 1t4i
5	Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha
6	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin-Barracuda
7	Daniel Oss (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale
8	Allan Davis (Aus) GreenEdge Cycling Team
9	Aaron Kemps (Aus) Champion System
10	Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Belisol Team

 

Final general classification

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Tom Boonen (Bel) Omega Pharma-QuickStep	15:42:14
2	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin-Barracuda	0:00:28
3	Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Sky Procycling	0:00:33
4	Gert Steegmans (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step	0:00:34
5	Tom Veelers (Ned) Project 1t4i	0:01:00
6	Mark Cavendish (GBr) Sky Procycling	0:01:05
7	Fabian Cancellara (Swi) RadioShack-Nissan	0:01:06
8	Ramunas Navardauskas (Ltu) Garmin-Barracuda	0:01:09
9	Aidis Kruopis (Ltu) GreenEdge Cycling Team	0:01:10
10	Adam Blythe (GBr) BMC Racing Team	0:01:14

Vuelta a Espana: Stage 16

http://www.cyclingnews.com/vuelta-a-espana/stage-16/results
Juan José Haedo (Saxo Bank-Sungard) took victory on stage 16 of the Vuelta a España in bizarre circumstances ahead of Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) and Daniele Bennati (Leopard Trek). while Juan José Cobo (Geox-TMC) retained the red jersey.

As Bennati's Leopard Trek squad strung out the peloton in the closing kilometres, it looked as though a long, hot day in the saddle was going to end as scripted with a straightforward bunch sprint in the streets of Haro. Although a plethora of sprinters have already left the race, Petacchi, Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervélo) and Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) were among the riders lined up behind Bennati and his lead-out man Robert Wagner approaching the final bend, and the stage seemed set for a grandstand finish.

Instead, it turned out to be something of a damp squib; when Wagner swung off the front on a roundabout with 300 metres to go, he took a wrong turning, veering off to the right instead of following the race route on the left.

"Unfortunately due to tiredness and the chaotic nature of a finish, Robbie [Robert Wagner] followed the motorbike right around the roundabout instead of heading left towards the finish," Leopard Trek directeur sportif Luca Guercilena explained. "Daniele had to brake too much. He wasn't able to go straight to the line."

While Bennati hesitated momentarily before choosing the right path, the well-placed Sagan started to follow Wagner but then locked up the brakes as he recognized his mistake and fell out of contention. Sensing the confusion, Haedo cleverly launched his sprint early, and emerged from the roundabout with a healthy advantage over Bennati and Petacchi.

The Argentinian even had time to sit up and savour his first Grand Tour triumph in the final 50 metres, and Petacchi's impressive final effort ultimately proved to be in vain. A disappointed Bennati recovered to come home in third, just ahead of Vicente Reynes (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Leigh Howard (HTC-Highroad).

"It crowns my career so far, absolutely! I’ve won stages at other important races like the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tirreno-Adriatico or the Tour of Catalunya, but this one is the most beautiful of them all," Haedo said afterwards. "This success is a gift for the sixteen days of suffering I've experienced. I’ve done the right thing staying in the race…"

While there was considerable consternation among the sprinting fraternity about the confused final kilometre, Saxo Bank directeur sportif Brad McGee was adamant that Haedo would have won regardless of Wagner's wrong turn.

"He was ready, was in the perfect position in the finale and he was better tactically and physically in the technically demanding sprint where some riders took the wrong turn in the last roundabout," McGee said. "But it would have made no difference. JJ (Haedo) was simply better than everyone today and we hope he can repeat this win on Sunday in Madrid."

Froome's move checked by Cobo

The finish-line intrigue was not confined just to the sprinters, as Juan José Cobo and Team Sky brought their battle for overall supremacy from the vertiginous slopes of the Angliru to the plains of La Rioja.

Barely 10km from the finish, Jesus Rosendo (Andalucia-Caja Granada), the final survivor of the day's breakaway, was engulfed by the peloton on the cusp of the second intermediate sprint. With seconds at a premium in the fight for the red jersey, Froome sensed his opportunity and moved towards the front of the bunch.

Although he was thwarted in his hunt for the full six bonus seconds by the quick thinking of Cobo's teammate David De La Fuente, Froome did manage to pick up the two seconds on offer for third place behind Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervélo).

By the time the stage was done, however, Froome's hypothetical advantage would be wiped out. The Briton and his teammate Bradley Wiggins were caught behind when the peloton split on the high-speed run-in to the finishing line, and Froome handed back his short-lived two second gain to Cobo before it even registered with the time keepers.

While the gap was minimal, there is no underestimating the impact that Cobo's tenth-place finish will have on his morale. With the race poised on a knife edge and with a series of tight stages to come in the Basque Country, every gain, temporal or psychological, is to be treasured in a tense final week to the Vuelta.

Rodriguez crash

For a stage that culminated in such dramatic fashion, its beginnings were altogether more banal. Barely a kilometre after the flag was dropped, Julien Fouchard (Cofidis) jumped clear with Andalucia-Caja Granada pair Jesus Rosendo and Antonio Cabello, and a weary-legged peloton duly left them to it.

The trio built up a lead of 8:30 after just 40km, but when the sprinters' teams stirred from their slumber shortly after the midway point, their gap began to fall softly. With 30km to go, Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek) thundered to the front of the bunch, in what is set to be his final appearance of this year's Vuelta – the Swiss rider announced before the stage that he will leave the race this evening to fine-tune his preparation for the world championships.

Perhaps sensing that Cancellara had a plane to catch, Rosendo opted to leave his breakaway companions behind and try his luck alone shortly afterwards. Although he put up solid resistance to the chasing pack, he knew that his time off the front was limited, and he was duly snaffled up on the run-in to the final intermediate sprint.

As the pace picked up in the main field, a crash removed a number of riders from contention, with the worst affected riders being Rafal Majka (Saxo Bank-Sungard) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha). Although Rodriguez was able to ride gingerly to the finish in the company of a loyal platoon of Katusha teammates, the Spaniard had conceded 5:30 by the finish, and said that he would decide on his continued participation on Wednesday morning.

Rodriguez, so dominant in the opening week of the race, has endured a rather more difficult spell since. The home favourite before the Vuelta, Rodriguez's crash was overshadowed on the day by the dramatic incident in the final kilometre, while in overall terms, Spanish hopes were already pinned to Juan José Cobo.

	Result
1	Juan José Haedo (Arg) Saxo Bank Sungard	4:41:56
2	Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre - ISD
3	Daniele Bennati (Ita) Leopard Trek
4	Vicente Reynes Mimo (Spa) Omega Pharma-Lotto
5	Leigh Howard (Aus) HTC-Highroad	0:00:02
6	Koen De Kort (Ned) Skil - Shimano
7	Lloyd Mondory (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
8	Nikolas Maes (Bel) Quickstep Cycling Team
9	Christopher Sutton (Aus) Sky Procycling
10	Juan Jose Cobo Acebo (Spa) Geox-TMC

GC Overall

Result
1	Juan Jose Cobo Acebo (Spa) Geox-TMC	64:39:14
2	Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling	0:00:22
3	Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling	0:00:51
4	Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team	0:01:41
5	Maxime Monfort (Bel) Leopard Trek	0:02:40
6	Denis Menchov (Rus) Geox-TMC	0:03:06
7	Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek	0:03:08
8	Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale	0:03:49
9	Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto	0:04:03
10	Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team	0:04:18