Andrea Guardini had hoped to win the sprint in stage 4 of the Tour of Qatar but the Italian was boxed in and had to settle for 8th. Instead, it was his teammate Dmitriy Gruzdev who put the Astana colours on show.

“It gets dark here early, so we started the race early and I spent all day in a headwind with two other guys," Gruzdev said.

The Kazakh rider rode in the main breakaway with two other riders to reduce pressure on teammates for the expected final sprint. Gruzdev and his two companions were caught with fewer than 20km to the finish, setting up teammate Andrea Guardini for a mass sprint where the Italian finished alongside Borut Bozic in the Top-10.

Race organizers moved the start time up one hour to account for strong winds and an early evening, with stagewinner Alexander Kristoff of Norway across the line in a little more than four hours and fifteen minutes.