Cavendish Wins Tour Of Qatar Fifth Stage

Last updated : 09 February 2012 By Kev Monks

Mark Cavendish won the fifth stage of the Tour Of Qatar today and his second stage of the race.

Stage five was 160kms long and saw the race start at the Camel Race Track and make its way to Al Khor Corniche.

Two riders in Liquigas' Maciej Bodnar and Katusha's Aliaksandr Kuchynski remained out of a five man break as the stage reached the 25kms to go mark on a day where Jan Ullrich had been given a retrospective two year ban from 2005,

They were a minute ahead with twenty kilometres to go ahead of a peloton which was without Team Sky's Michael Barry who had broken his elbow in a crash yesterday.

With Jermy Hunt working hard for Team Sky, the front two were looking over their shoulders and with nine and a half kilometres to go, they were swallowed up by the peloton.

There was a small crash two kilometres later but the main protagonists were still on their bikes and being brought up to the front by their teams.

Robbie McEwen punctured with less than four to go as the pace was ramped up by the Project and Rabobank teams.

Garmin trying to get a win for Tyler Farrar were ahead at the final roundabout with 1.3kms left.

Mark Cavendish was now seventh back but he picked the gap out with about 450ms to go and won the stage ahead of Daniel Oss and Peter Sagan in a time of 3hr 30 mins and 40 seconds.

Picture https://twitter.com/#!/TeamSky/status/167594174785404929/photo/1

Tom Boonen stays in the leaders Gold jersey