BMC's Brent Bookwalter won the opening stage of the Tour Of Qatar.
On a windy day from Katara Cultural Village to Dukhan Beach, a group of fourteen riders including Omega Pharma Quick Step's Mark Cavendish escaped on this 145.2km stage.
They were clear until after Taylor Phinney had collected the first sprint points of the day.
Matt Hayman (Sky), Zak Dempster (NetApp-Endura) and Martin Velits (Omega Pharma-QuickStep then took to the front before BMC attacked spliting the peloton into three groups on the road.
The third group which included Cavendish made up nearly a minute and with less than forty kilometres left, Team Sky's Berni Eisel, Roy Curvers (Argos-Shimano), Dominique Rollin (FDJ) and Michael Schär (BMC) took over at the front.
They were away until seventeen kilometres to when they were met by a headwind which allowed the peloton to catch them.
With ten kilometres to go, Martin Elmiger (IAM Cycling), Gregory Rast (RadioShack-Trek) and BMC's Brent Bookwalter sneaked away and stayed away.
The usual cat and mouse antics followed but it was Bookwalter who was first over the line at the Durkan Beach finish, beating Elminger, Rast, Eisel, Viviani and Mark Cavendish.