Mark Cavendish wins the fifth stage of the Tour of Qatar 2012
Mark Cavendish wins the fifth stage of the Tour of Qatar to bag his second win of the season and the race. UCI World Road Champion finished the race in the fastest time of 3 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds to claim the top position during the race.
Team Liquigas-Cannondale cyclists, Daniel Oss and Peter Sagan achieved the second and the third positions, with John Degenkolb and Rudiger Selig securing the fourth and the fifth positions, respectively.
Mark was over the moon with the stage win and acknowledged the efforts by his teammates during the 160 kilometre stage. He explained that Team Sky is a strong side and they worked as a unit which helped the team with an important stage win.
Cavendish cited, “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”.
“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”, he concluded.
The cyclist also won the third stage of the race, which helped him with a solid, third overall positions after the stage three classifications.
He failed to make an impact during stage 4 and could not finish any better than the 31st position.
The British cyclist started the fifth stage with the 11th overall position and his outstanding performance earned him a 7th overall spot after the stage 5 classifications.
Aliaksandr Kuchynski and Robert Wagner won the first and the second sprints of the race. Daniel Oss, Peter Sagan and John Degenkolb were the top three young riders on the day.
Omega Pharma-Quick Step cyclist, Tom Boonen is the current overall leader of the race with Tyler Farrar, Juan Antonio and Gert Steegmans securing the next three positions.
Bernhard Eisel and Tom Veelers are at the 5th and 6th positions in the respective order.
With just one more stage to go Boonen is clearly the favourite to secure the overall victory at the 2012 edition of the Tour of Qatar.
The 120 kilometre chase to Doha Corniche is scheduled on Friday and it will be interesting to see if Cavendish can bridge the gap of 1 minute and 5 seconds to challenge the Belgian.
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