On today's stage, Tinkoff-Saxo was at the front of the peloton in the last km. The team supported Italian Daniele Bennati. Team DS Lars Michaelsen is happy with the outcome, which was earned on a very nervous stage.
The stage was dominated by a four-man breakaway. One of the riders in the breakaway was Belgian road race champion Stijn Devolder. The riders had an almost 3 minute gap with only 25 minutes to go, but they weren’t able to keep up the pace.
The front group was reeled in with 7km to go and the stage was to be decided in a mass sprint. German sprinter Andre Greipel powered towards the finish line and was simply unstoppable. Daniele Bennati finished just outside the podium.
“After a nervous start, things cooled down and the break had a maximum advantage of 7 minutes. The sprinters team began to stabilize the advantage to the break and at km 100, things started to speed up on a final circuit when the peloton was hitting the crosswind section the first time out of three. The gap was going down gradually and it ended up in a bunch sprint with about 110 riders,” Lars Michaelsen said.
Michaelsen says the team will try to follow the sprinters on tomorrow's stage.
“Manuele (Boaro) hadn't fully recovered from his sickness but he made it through another hard stage. Tomorrow's the final stage finishing with 10 laps of 5,8 km on the seaside boulevard "la Corniche" in Doha centre. The sprinters will fight out the battle for the stage win and we'll try to join the fun," says DS, Lars Michaelsen.
Starting at 12.45 CET you can follow the final stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live. You can read our preview here.
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