Brent Bookwalter and several BMC Racing Team riders were held up by a crash in the final km of the 160 km 4th stage of the Tour of Qatar.

Although nobody was seriously hurt in the crash, Bookwalter was forced to surrender his overall lead to British sprinter Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step).

A 10-second bonus was sufficient to earn Cavendish the overall lead, two seconds ahead of Bookwalter, who is now second ahead of four more BMC Racing Team riders.

Taylor Phinney is third (eight seconds behind), Adam Blythe is fourth (nine seconds) and Greg Van Avermaet and Michael Schär are fifth and sixth, respectively (both at 12 seconds). No BMC Racing Team riders finished in the top 10 of the stage.

Phinney still leads in the best young rider classification and said that the easy start of today’s finish was partly to blame for the crash.

"You get a stage where you're pretty much riding easy for three-and-a-half hours and then everybody is fresh for the sprint. Fresh legs don't make for safe finishes. I would much prefer it to be like the first day when everybody was pretty tired from all the wind and the echelons. It's a lot less frightening.”