Démare opens professional account in Doha

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On another day of high drama at the 2012 Tour of Qatar, promising French rider Arnaud Demare raced to the first professional victory of his career in the colours of FDJ-BigMat at the sixth and final stage. 20-year-old Demare came home ahead of Denis Galimzyanov (Katusha) and Rabobank’s 2011 winner Mark Renshaw, who put a frustrating week behind him with a podium finish on the final day.

Belgium’s Tom Boonen’s 15th place finish on the day was enough for him to win the overall GC and points classification and meant that he ended the day celebrating a fourth victory in this race, fully justifying his tag as the “King of the Desert”. Garmin-Barracuda’s Tyler Farrar finished as runner-up, 28 seconds behind Boonen, with Team Sky’s Juan Antonio Flecha five seconds further back in third.

This year’s race, as always, has been marred by a number of crashes and punctures and today was no different. With the riders finding their feet in new teams and with the flat nature of the course making for tight, fast and bunch finishes, bumps have become unavoidable.

The biggest casualty of the race was stage three and stage five winner Mark Cavendish (Team Sky), who came together with two other riders close to the finish and suffered a nasty fall that brought gashes to his legs and to his left shoulder. Cavendish was helped to his feet by his teammate and friend Bernie Eisel and bravely got on a spare bike and finished the stage.

Cavendish’s crash hindered a large proportion of the field in the finale, meaning that Demare’s decision to go for home early paid off. Earlier on the field had been helped by a considerable tail wind as they made their way from the Sealine Beach Resort to the Doha Corniche. Before the peloton’s arrival there a pack of seven riders broke away, building a lead that reached a peak gap of 2:20.

At the Doha Corniche the riders encountered 11 6km laps around the harbour side with the pack making relatively heavy weather of catching the group in front. They finally bridged the gap with just 15km to go, which provided the platform for yet another frantic bunch sprint to the line. Demare’s tactics proved shrewd as he crossed the line for what in the end was a cosy victory for the 2011 U23 road world champion.

"I was placed in ideal conditions in the last couple of kilometres with the help of my teammates," Demare said. "It's an amazing feeling. Tom Boonen and Tyler Farrar came to congratulate me. I have admired them in front of my TV for so long."

Elsewhere, a serious verbal altercation took place after the finish between Rabobank’s main leadout rider Graeme Brown and RadioShack-Nissan’s Robert Wagner. Brown accused Wagner of bumping him repeatedly and the two men had to be dragged apart as tempers flared on what was the hottest day of the race so far.

But the week has undoubtedly belonged to Boonen, who claimed both the golden and silver jerseys by using a combination of his considerable experience here and a fitness edge that he honed at the Tour de San Luis. His fourth victory in the race tasted especially sweet, as he told Cyclingnews.

“All four wins here have been hard,” he said. “If you win four times it’s 24 days of hard labour. But this was nice because there were a lot of good riders here. Two days ago the hard stage we had was really like a classic. Normally after a hard stage you can break it up a bit in the following ones but this year it has been a man to man fight. We controlled the last two stages as a team so I am happy. I think that this year has definitely been a very important one.”

Boonen’s performances and those of his principal accomplice Gert Steegmans meant that Omega Pharma-Quick Step were able to add the team GC to the two jerseys he won. The battle for the young riders white jersey was won by Garmin-Barracuda’s Ramunas Navardauskas. It was a fitting reward, alongside Farrar’s second place, for his team, whose consistency throughout the week shone through.

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