Bernhard Eisel showed himself in the fifth stage of the Tour of Qatar yesterday. 

He contested the second intermediate sprint and came in behind former teammate Mark Cavendish, picking up two bonus seconds. After that, he opted to continue his attack together with BMC’s Taylor Phinney and Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Niki Terpstra.

Although the trio was caught with 14 km to go, Team Sky sports director Servais Knaven was full of praise:

“Bernie was great today. He is always good at this race but he is even better this year. He is really motivated and has been showing a lot of initiative.”

But Eisel wasn’t the only rider Knaven was happy with: “They all tried to go in the break and get some bonifications. It was a hard race and they were racing really well today and got in the breaks. There were quite a few flat tyres today because of stones on the road, so it was quite a hectic day.”

“Then, at the end of the day, we did the sprint for Luke but we were just a bit too late for the top three. It was a good sprint from Luke and it would have been nice to have been on the podium and get some bonifications, but it didn’t quite work out.”

“Tomorrow, we are going to try to move up a few places in the GC”, added Knaven. “There are some time bonifications left and we are going to try to get them. If Bernie can move up a little bit, that would be perfect. We are definitely still going to make a play. We have still got to decide what the exact plan is, but it will be an interesting day.”