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Quick Step storms Qatar

Published: Jan. 28, 2008
Quick Step's Tom Boonen takes Stage 2 and the overall in the Tour of Qatar
Quick Step's Tom Boonen takes Stage 2 and the overall in the Tour of Qatar
Photo: AFP

A storm blew across the Qatari desert Monday, but it wasn’t one of the sirocco winds that can scour this flat desert wasteland.

Instead, it came in the form of a super-motivated Quick Step team that left the Tour of Qatar peloton flayed like a lonely flag tattered in the wind.

Coming a day after its team time trial victory, QuickStep didn’t miss a step and hammered through stiff crosswinds in Monday’s 137.5km second stage from Al Zubarah to the Doha Golf Club to shatter the race into pieces.

With an average speed of 55.511kph, only seven riders finished in the front group as Tom Boonen easily took his record 12th career Qatar stage, a bike length ahead of Greg Van Avermaet (Silence-Lotto) with Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) coming through third.

“It was a collective team effort. We wanted to break apart the race,” said Boonen, who inherited the leader’s jersey from teammate Matteo Tosatto. “I feel better than expected right now. I finished my 2007 season early and took a nice break. I’ve been training well and had really good sensations in the team time trial. I’m feeling really good right now.”

With time bonuses, Boonen moves into the leader’s jersey nine seconds ahead of teammate Steven De Jongh with Van Avermaet slotting into third at 15 seconds back.

Slipstream-Chipotle was one of the few teams to be able to withstand the QuickStep onslaught, slipping Chris Sutton and Magnus Backstedt into the front group.

Backstedt came unplugged in the final kilometers, finshing 11th at 20 seconds back while Sutton was impressive with fourth in the bunch sprint.

Unfortunately for Sutton, he lost his best young rider’s jersey to Van Avermaet, who picked up bonus seconds with second place. Sutton moved up to fourth overall at 15 seconds back and now has a legitimate shot at the podium.

Qatar’s infamous winds kicked up for Monday’s stage and quickly became a protagonist.

The stage was fast from the beginning, with the opening hour average nearly 60kph. At those speeds, no one could dare to escape and most had a hard time simply hanging on. The pack was already fractured into three groups in the opening 15km.

“It was fast out of the block. You couldn’t sit back because it was almost harder then because you would get pushed off the road and into echelons,” Backstedt said. “It was almost easier to stay at the front and take your pulls and then float back. Quick Step has the strongest team here and they dictated the tactics.”

Under the relentless speeds, riders started popping off the back. Two riders abandoned – Scott Nydam (BMC) and Grant Irwin (DPC) – as the group fractured into a half-dozen groups fighting to hang on.

The lead group was whittled down to about 30 riders as Quick Step and Silence-Lotto set a blistering pace in the closer 25km. The average speed never came down as the two Belgian teams kept the pressure up in the three-hour stage.

“My response was, ‘My God!’” said Mike Sayers (BMC), speaking of the high average speeds. “The first hour was 57kph and it never came down from that. It was totally frustrating trying to stay with the front group. I was on my limit. I’m a pretty good wind rider in the United States, but this is another level.”

Like many teams, BMC is here to try to make a positive impression on race consultant ASO, organizers of the Tour de France and other big European races such as Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Paris-Nice.

Sayers said the team was hoping to get into a breakaway to show Tour boss Christian Prudhomme it has the mettle to fight with the big teams, but the speeds were so unrelenting that it was impossible.

Dean Windsor – an Australian rider on the Drapac Porsche team – said the real pain came late in the race when Quick Step turned the screws one more time.

“QuickStep went to front with about and pushed the speed to 70kph for about five kilometers,” he said. “That just pushed out everyone except seven riders.”

Silence-Lotto managed to keep two riders in the front group, but even the dangerous presence of Napolitano didn’t phase Boonen.

The overall winner in 2006, Boonen made easy work of his rivals and drove home the win.

He’ll be in the driver’s seat as the 7th Tour of Qatar continues Tuesday with the 147.5km third stage from the Camel Race Track to the Qatar Foundation.