Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff-Saxo) bounced back from intestinal problems with a very strong ride in today's Tour of Qatar time trial. The Italian narrowly beat Fabian Cancellara (Trek) to take 3rd and is now confident in his form ahead of the final three stages.

When he arrived in Qatar for this week's race in the desert country, Daniele Bennati had indicated that he was in splendid condition and ready to find back to his winning ways. Hence, many were surprised to see him lose more than 10 minutes in the first stage.

However, the Italian was suffering from intestinal problems and since then I has taken his revenge. In the second stage, he was one of the driving forces behind Tinkoff-Saxo's strong showing in the crosswind and did a huge work to support Michael Mørkøv to 2nd.

Today he proved his condition when he finished 3rd in the time trial. The result was an important confidence boost and the Italian is now ready to give it a go in the final three road stages.

“Unfortunately, I was feeling a bit under the weather the first few days of the race because of an intestinal problem and because of that I gave everything to lead out Michael (Mørkøv) in yesterday's finale and I lost a little time overall in the final kilometre," he said. "So I really didn’t think I was able to go this fast today but this is perfect for the moral and let’s see what the rest of the race brings."

Tinkoff-Saxo’s Michael Mørkøv dropped from fourth to seventh position overall but he’s still feeling confident.

“I rode the best I could and the sensation was ok out there in both the head- and tailwind," he said. "When we didn’t have TT bikes here, I was really happy about riding Specialized Venge and our Zipp wheels that made me feel strong. I lost a few positions overall but if we keep riding aggressively as we have done so far, anything can happen."

Starting at 12.45 CET you can follow tomorrow's stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live. You can read our preview of the windy stage here.