Tour of Qatar Final: Chicchi takes second stage win, but Mol gets the overall

Italy's Francesco Chicchi won his second stage of the Tour of Qatar today, but the at the end of the final stage the overall win went to the Dutchman, Wouter Mol who made his long break on stage 2 really count.

Today's final stage took the riders from Al Wakra to Doha on a 123.5Km route finishing with seven laps of a 6Km circuit of the Doha Corniche – as ever in Qatar it was windy. Almost from the gun four riders made a break for it: Gretsch (THR), Kohler (BMC), Terpstra (MRM) and King (TLS) and the peloton were content to let them go.

The four stayed out for most of the day picking up sprint points between them just after the half way point of the stage they had 3min 50s on the chasing pack, or indeed the not particularly chasing pack. That proved to be the limit of their gains and from then on they were reeled in, at first steadily with Mol's Vacansoleil team leading the peloton; and then more dramatically as Liquigas, Cervelo, Saur-Sojasun and Saxo Bank moved to the front as they field began to lap the Corniche.

When they hit the Corniche the escapers still have over 3 mins on the pack, by the fifth lap of that was 1 min 30s and at the start of the final lap a mere 16 seconds, that was never going to be enough giving the quality of the sprint teams in this field and so it proved. Chicchi's Liquigas team got him in position to make his sprint count and he was first to the line besting Garmin's Tyler Farrar and Haedo of Saxo Bank who came in second and third respectively.

Wouter Mol though took the overall title after riding a safe race in the bunch being where he needed to be when it counted, Heinrich Haussler of Cervelo took the points competition and Roger Kluge of Milram was best young rider. Roger Hammond of the Cervelo Test Team was the highest placed British rider in 13th place overall, and Ian Stannard was the top rider in the overall for Sky in 35th place, Edvald Boasson Hagen finished 39th and Bradley Wiggins eased himself in finishing in 114th place overall. 

Final Top 10 overall Tour of Qatar

1) Wouter Mol 	VACANSOLEIL PRO CYCLING TEAM	15h 55' 17"
2) Geert Steurs	TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN-MERCATOR	15h 55' 52"	+ 00' 35"
3) Tom Boonen	QUICK STEP CYCLING TEAM	        15h 57' 02"	+ 01' 45"
4) Roger Kluge	TEAM MILRAM	                15h 57' 16"	+ 01' 59"
5) Marcus Burghardt 	BMC RACING TEAM	        15h 57' 22"	+ 02' 05"
6) Danilo Napolitano 	KATUSHA TEAM	        15h 57' 26"	+ 02' 09"
7) Philippe Gilbert	OMEGA PHARMA - LOTTO	15h 57' 34"	+ 02' 17"
8) Francesco Chicchi	LIQUIGAS-DOIMO	        15h 57' 45"	+ 02' 28"
9) Heinrich Haussler	CERVELO TEST TEAM	15h 57' 54"	+ 02' 37"
10)Stuart O’Grady	TEAM SAXO BANK	        15h 57' 57"	+ 02' 40"

Top 10 Tour of Qatar Stage 6

1) Francesco Chicchi LIQUIGAS-DOIMO	          2h 42' 49"
2) Tyler Farrar GARMIN - TRANSITIONS	          2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
3) Juan Jose Haedo TEAM SAXO BANK	          2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
4) Matthew Goss TEAM HTC - COLUMBIA	          2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
5) Jimmy Casper SAUR-SOJASUN	                  2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
6) Edvald Boasson Hagen TEAM SKY	          2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
7) Tom Boonen QUICK STEP CYCLING TEAM	          2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
8)Roger Kluge TEAM MILRAM	                  2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
9) Heinrich Haussler CERVELO TEST TEAM	          2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"
1) John Murphy BMC RACING TEAM	                  2h 42' 49"	+ 00' 00"