By: Caley Fretz
The road to the finish at Dukhan Beach doubled back on itself before cutting left one last time, putting the finish in sight. Mark Cavendish’s Omega Pharma – Quick-Step teammates yanked at the front of the field, pulling it into line. Then Sky took over, towing Elia Viviani. Still, Brent Bookwalter and a pair of Swiss breakaway companions held their gap. It was less than 30 seconds at 3 kilometers to go and the announcer spoke mostly of their doom.
But the wind had turned, slowing the closure of the narrow advantage. At 300 meters the sprint opened up. Two sprints actually, one of tired legs in front and one of fresh ones behind, closing like a train. But the train was late, misjudged, the wind misunderstood. A single meter was the difference. Not enough, even, to give the trio a time gap. Bookwalter, very much not a bunch sprinter, won the first stage of the 2013 Tour of Qatar.
“You would’ve thought that we would’ve come back really fast,” Bookwalter said that day. Indeed, that is what we all thought. “I think no one really knew what the wind was going to do in the last 4km.” No, we didn’t. We still don’t.
They say that the world championships in Qatar will be snoozy, that the heat and a comprehensive lack of elevation change will turn the 257km race into a Joycean slog punctuated, as such slogs are, only in its final moments. But they said the same about that stage in Qatar three years ago, didn’t they?
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