There was bad luck today at the Tour of Qatar as race leader Edvald Boassen Hagen (Dimension Data for Qhubeka) lost the lead after puncturing with just eight kilometres remaining. However, his team retains the leader’s jersey as Mark Cavendish moved into first place.
Boasson Hagen punctured from a select front split of just 25 odd riders. The split happened with around 14km to go when LottoNL-Jumbo put the pressure on at the front of the race.
BMC then came to the front, trying to capitalise on Boasson Hagen’s misfortune by driving the front group as hard as they could along with the LottoNL-Jumbo team.
This played right into the hands of Katusha though as they could concentrate on organising the leadout for Kristoff. They did this with such effectiveness from 2km out, that it was only 4 riders that crossed the line together on the same time as Kristoff at the end of the stage.
Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) took second with Jacopo Guarnieri (Katusha) rounding out the podium. Sam Bennett edged out Cavendish to take fourth and the Irishman now moves up to 7th place overall.
With just 2 seconds separating Cavendish and Van Avermaet in the overall, there is all to play for during tomorrow’s final 114km stage to Doha.
Mark Cavendish
“It was horrible to lose 1st and 2nd on GC in such a disappointing way. Edvald punctured in the last 10km and unfortunately Lotto Jumbo went full gas, BMC as well but obviously they had a reason to but Lotto Jumbo don’t have anyone on GC so it was a bit sad. All the guys waited for Edvald to try and bring him back. It was a full cross-tail finish so it means you need a full team with you otherwise you just going to be hammered in the gutter. So we put all our eggs in Edvald’s basket and I knew I just needed to bury myself deep and we’d still hang onto the jersey anyway. The team rode incredibly strongly today. Matt and Mekseb controlled the race alone, with no help from any other teams and that was awesome to see for 190km. Honestly we got to pay back the good work the guys have done all week and hold on to the jersey tomorrow.”
Stage 4 Results
1 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha 3:57:12
2 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing Team
3 Jacopo Guarnieri (Ita) Team Katusha
4 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Argon 18
5 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Dimension Data
6 Manuel Quinziato (Ita) BMC Racing Team
7 Viacheslav Kuznetsov (Rus) Team Katusha 0:00:06
8 Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:00:08
9 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 0:00:09
10 Michael Morkov (Den) Team Katusha
General classification after stage 4
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Dimension Data 10:51:13
2 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing Team 0:00:02
3 Manuel Quinziato (Ita) BMC Racing Team 0:00:06
4 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha 0:00:09
5 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Dimension Data 0:00:19
6 Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:00:30
7 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Argon 18 0:00:41
8 Sven Erik Bystrøm (Nor) Team Katusha 0:00:49
9 Viacheslav Kuznetsov (Rus) Team Katusha 0:00:50
10 Michael Schär (Swi) BMC Racing Team 0:00:58
