Boonen wins Tour of Qatar
Fourth title for Belgian; Cavendish crashes in final sprint
Tom Boonen of Omega Pharma-QuickStep wrapped up the overall title at the UCI 2.1 Tour of Qatar on Friday. In addition, the Belgian strong-man scored two stage victories along the way. FDJ-Big Mat’s Arnaud Demare, the under-23 road race world champion, took his first professional stage win to end the six-day event.
The win reveals that, though his career has had hiccups of late, Boonen is still a quality rider. The Belgian won a lot of admirers in last year’s Tour de France by fighting on in obvious distress after a bad crash to avoid the time limit cutoff. He’s been World Champion, the green jersey winner of the Tour de France and taken the Paris-Roubaix crown thrice in his career.
The Tour of Qatar was also notable for Mark Cavendish’s first wins as World Champion and first for riding for new team Sky. Cavendish crashed in the build-up to Demare’s sprint win. A sad aspect of the stage race was several injuries, including Canadian vet Michael Barry’s broken elbow.
Boonen finished 28 seconds ahead of American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Barracuda) and 33 seconds up on Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky). “Tornado Tom” was certainly one of the pre-race favourites.
Canadian Svein Tuft made a fine debut for his new GreenEdge team, finishing 28th overall, while Dominique Rollin (FDJ-Big Mat) was 57th on GC.
