Tour of Qatar: Greipel comes good on stage 5

There's nothing like making sure. After losing by an inch the previous day, André Greipel won by the proverbial mile on stage 5 of the Tour of Qatar as he unfurled a crisp sprint finish to claim victory in Madinat Al Shamal.

Disappointed by his narrow defeat to Tom Boonen 24 hours earlier, the softly-spoken Greipel admitted that he had channelled his frustration into the powerful sprint that saw him cross the line all of five bike lengths clear of Aidis Kruopis (Orica-GreenEdge) and Theo Bos (Belkin).

"Maybe I put a little bit of anger into my sprint today. But I think it was a good sprint," Greipel said afterwards.

Greipel was well worth his victory here, particularly given that his Lotto-Belisol team had shouldered so much of the responsibility for controlling the race and chasing down the break of the day. The Omega Pharma-QuickStep team of gold jersey Niki Tersptra remain patrons of the race, but they were happy to delegate many of their duties to Lotto for the afternoon.

"I think QuickStep wanted to let the breakaway go today so we took the responsibility and tried to set up the sprint," Greipel said. "I think the team did a really good job during the whole stage to chase the breakaway down and to keep me out of trouble in the last kilometres."

Lotto spent almost 100 kilometres stalking the day's early break before finally catching their prey on the last lap of the finishing circuit, with just seven kilometres to race. Then, in the finale, their lead-out train was pitch perfect, as Marcel Sieberg and the versatile Jürgen Roelandts guided Greipel through a final section of crosswind before the sprint.

A competing QuickStep train looked to bring Boonen back on terms, but they started from too far back and were unable to make up the ground. Only Kruopis, who cannily managed to nudge between Greipel and Roelandts, posed a threat in the finishing straight, but he, too, would be soundly beaten.

With 200 metres to go, and without waiting for Roelandts to swing off or Kruopis to play his hand, Greipel simply opened the throttle, and instantly ripped clear of the peloton. Although so narrowly beaten on stage 4 - he had to wait five minutes for the photo finish before accepting that he had lost to Boonen - Greipel had no doubts about the outcome once he opened his sprint here. "Yeah," he said quietly, "today I was sure."

In the general classification, Niki Terpstra remains in a commanding position ahead of Friday's final stage to Doha Corniche. The Dutchman has a lead of 17 seconds over teammate Tom Boonen, while Jürgen Roelandts lies third overall, a further three seconds back.

The havoc of earlier stages gave way to a more straightforward afternoon of racing on stage 5 as Omega Pharma-QuickStep's dogs of war were kept on a tight leash for once. That said, the start out of Al Zubara Fort was in keeping with the tone of the race to date, with 48 kilometres covered in the first hour alone.

It was clear from the outset, however, that QuickStep had precious little intention of splitting the peloton in the crosswinds as it had done to such resounding effect earlier in the week - mindful, of course, that for much of the day, the peloton would face into a block headwind. Instead, just six kilometres in, a four-man break featuring Stijn Devolder (Trek Factory Racing), Patrick Gretsch (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Vladimir Isaychev (Katusha) and Daniel Schorn (NetApp-Endura) was allowed to sally clear with nary a response from Boonen et al.

The quartet built up a lead of five minutes by the time they swung left after Umm Thenaitain (45km) and turned into the headwind. The next segment of the course would sap the spirit as much as it would the legs. Fifty, numbing kilometres of dead straight, four-lane motorway lay ahead, and Devolder, Gretsch, Isaychev and Schorn would have to claw against the wind and an unending false flat, as they battled to maintain their advantage over the bunch.

As their lead yawned to seven minutes along that vast thoroughfare, Lotto-Belisol took it upon themselves to start managing the advantage, having realised the QuickStep had little interest in shutting down the move. With 50 kilometres to race, as the break reached the finishing circuits at Madinat Al Shamal, the gap was down to a shade over three minutes, and it was only a matter of time as to when the catch would be made.

Led by Devolder, the four escapees diligently stuck to their task, however and they maintained a lead of 2:45 with 28 kilometres remaining. But at that point, Lotto-Belisol began the pursuit in earnest, and the break's margin began to dwindle rapidly thereafter. The red guard barely skipped a beat after pegging them back, and Greipel duly did the rest.

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