Mark Cavendish crashed during the final stage of the Tour of Qatar 2012
The sixth stage of the Tour of Qatar may have been a memorable day for the young cyclist Arnaud Demare as the French rider bagged his first of many professional victories.
It was one of the hottest days of racing, which also resulted in a steaming argument between Graeme Brown of Team Rabobank and Robert Wagner of Team RadioShack-Nissan.
Graeme accused Robert of regularly hitting him during the race which ignited the flare between the two cyclists.
A severe verbal conversation between the two riders took place after the race but the duo cooled down later on.
The biggest highlight of the race was Mark Cavendish’s crash that badly wounded both his legs and his shoulder.
The UCI World Road Champion was lucky as his teammate Bernie Eisel was around to help him out of his misery.
Cavendish grabbed the spare bike and had just enough strength to cross the finish-line at the 104th position, which ruined his chances of the overall victory.
He was cruising roughly at 65 kph and was lucky to get away with only minor injuries.
Mark won the 146.5 kilometre stage 3 and 160 kilometre stage 5 at the Tour of Qatar. He was looking good to claim his third stage win of the race but unfortunately ended up in a crash.
Cavendish was overwhelmed with the stage 5 win, “I’m really happy to have won, it’s my second stage win here this week, and my team did a great job protecting me and keeping me up there for the final push”.
He continued, “It’s a strong team that wants to do well, wants to win the sprints and the classics. It’s a team that can ride well in the wind and in the final, so it’s really good for us”.
Team Sky cyclist was 1 minute and 5 seconds behind Tom Boonen after the stage 5 classifications.
Boonen had a firm grip on the top position right from the start and further tightened the screws during the last stages.
Cavendish finished the 2012 edition of the Tour of Qatar with the 6th overall position and was 1 minute and five seconds behind after the final general classifications.
Boonen bagged his fourth overall win at the Tour of Qatar after 2006, 2008, 2009, and now in 2012. It was also the second consecutive over win for Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step.
The Belgian side also secured the overall win at the Tour de San Luis, which came through Francesco Chicchi.
The team also secured five stage wins during the Argentinean race, scheduled from January 23-29, 2012.
Tyler Farrar, Juan Antonio Flecha, Gert Steegmans and Tom Veelers occupied the second, third, fourth and fifth positions after the overall classifications.
Arnaud Demare, Denis Galimzyanov and Mark Renshaw claimed the first, second and the third positions during the 120 kilometre stage 6 of the Tour of Qatar 2012.
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