Tour of Qatar: Boonen makes it two on stage 4

Tom Boonen's early-season showcase continues, as the Omega Pharma-QuickStep man claimed his second victory in three days by pipping no less a figure than André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) in the sprint, at the end of stage 4 of the Tour of Qatar. The win moves Boonen up to second place overall, 17 seconds off his teammate Niki Terpstra.

"Timing," was the simple explanation Boonen gave for his victory, but his canny outmanoeuvring of Greipel in the final 100 metres tells only half of the story. The average speed for the day, an eye-watering 56.8kph, was surely also a contributing factor. The furious afternoon of racing, it seems, drew more of the string from Greipel's legs than it did from Boonen's.

"It helped that I've already won one stage. I think you are a little bit more relaxed and you don't make any mistakes," Boonen said afterwards. "But it's also about being in a very good condition, and knowing when you can go: that gives you the confidence not to make mistakes."

The stage was run off at a ferocious pace from the moment the flag was dropped, with some 58.9 kilometres covered in the first hour alone. By the time the race reached its crescendo in Mesaieed, QuickStep's forcing in the final crosswind section had already whittled the front group down to 70 riders, and it was clear that the biggest resistance to their dominance would come from Greipel and his well-organised Lotto-Belisol team.

Greipel opened up his sprint from distance, and with 200 metres to go, the German looked set to notch up his third victory of the campaign. Boonen, however, had deliberately hesitated and waited for Greipel to seize the initiative before launching his own acceleration. Inside the final 100 metres, he duly came around Greipel. They both dived for the line at the same time, and while the margin was just a rim, Boonen instantly knew that he had landed the win.

"I just let him start and waited until he was on speed, because I knew I had that 100 metre punch," Boonen said. "That's what I've been working on since I started training. It was to get my punch back, that I've maybe lose a little bit. But it's still there, you just have to wake it up a little bit."

Greipel crossed the line without knowing whether or not he had won, and when he wheeled to a halt, he sat waiting by his team car waiting for the result of the photo finish. The white smoke, so to speak, brought only disappointment for Greipel, but he admitted that he could not have done any more in the finale.

"It was hard for everyone but I made a good sprint, I think," Greipel said. "Ok, Tom won but that's racing."

Behind the two big guns, some young sharp shooters competed for the minor placings in the sprint, as Barry Markus (Belkin) claimed third and Sam Bennett (NetApp-Endura) took 5th. FDJ's Arnaud Démare could only manage 8th, though his performance was mitigated by the fact that he had only regained contact with the leaders in the final 5 kilometres.

In the overall standings, Omega Pharma-QuickStep now holds the top two positions through Terpstra and Boonen, with Lotto's Jürgen Roelandts, 3rd at 20 seconds, the closest challenger. Given his sprint form and the bonus seconds on offer in the coming days, Boonen is surely close to a fifth Tour of Qatar victory, but he said that he would not look to deny Terpstra: "No, if I get second, it's perfect. I will not try to win."

How it unfolded

At the start village in Dukhan, a delegation from the Qatari police gathered the directeurs sportifs for an impromptu briefing, ordering them to prevent their riders from taking natural breaks in public during the race.

They needn't have bothered. Such was the pace on Wednesday's stage that there was never a moment's respite wherein a rider might have found the time to wheel to a halt at the roadside and spend a penny.

As ever, the black jerseys of Omega Pharma-QuickStep instantly massed on the front of the peloton once the flag dropped, and while Boonen said their only aim was to control the race, the bunch soon fragmented into three distinct groups in the early crosswind, as Lotto-Belisol and Belkin also put their shoulders to the wheel.

At the cement factory at Umm Bab (25km), whose smoke-belching towers seemed transposed from an LS Lowry painting to the desert, the route swung into a lengthy tailwind section, where the leading group swelled to 90 riders. Those who didn't manage to claw their way back on at that point would never regain contact, lost on a long, dusty road to nowhere through the Qatari interior.

Some 58.9 kilometres were covered in the opening hour of racing and the tempo scarcely relented thereafter. The bunch would reach the finish in Mesaieed almost an hour up on the fastest estimated schedule and by the time the television feed went live, there were only ten kilometres left to race.

In the intervening period, Niki Terpstra had endured a brief scare when he punctured just before the first sprint after 60km, but he was soon back in the convoy and latched on to the pack. Philippe Gilbert (BMC) tried his luck by attacking with Jarl Salomein (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise) after 90km, but they were shut down shortly afterwards.

The race then swung back into crosswinds on hitting the coast for the final 30 kilometres, and once again, Omega Pharma-QuickStep hit the front, whittling the front group down still further, with Fabian Cancellara (Trek) and Lars Boom (Belkin) among those left behind. The stage was set, then, for the grandstand finale, where Boonen would take the decision from Greipel.

"We never tried to really split the group today, we just tried to control as much as possible, with the eight of us," Boonen said. "We succeeded and then in the last 50km we were going for the sprint, full speed."

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