Dutchman Wouter Mol of Vacansoliel team won the Tour of Qatar cycling race after the sixth and final stage was claimed by Italian Francesco Chicchi on Friday. Chicchi, who won a stage on Wednesday, beat American Tyler Farrar into second place over the 123.5 km stage from Al Wakrah to the Doha Corniche with Argentina’s Juan Jose Haedo finishing third.

Chicchi took the final mass sprint ahead of Tyler Fararof Garmin- Transitions and Juan Jos Haedo of Saxo Bank after seven high-speed laps of a finishing circuit on the Corniche.

Mol finished safely in the bunch to take the overall classification.

He broke away with Belgium’s Geert Steurs of Topsport Vlaanderen team, gaining almost two minutes as the big names were unable to take back the time during remaining part of the race. Steurs finished second whereas defending champion Tom Boonen of Quick Step who won two out of six stages finished third overall.

 “I’m really happy now. It was a long nervous day but the team did a great job so that I can stand on the winner’s podium. We did well as a team, and that’s what counts,” Mol said after pulling on the winner’s golden jersey.

 “We controlled the race again today and it was good that there were four riders up front. I was near the front of the bunch in the sprint and so it was no problem. I’m getting better as a rider. I’ve never done this kind of thing before. I hope I can do it some more times in the future,” Mol said.

Chicchi took his second stage win by blasting past his rivals on the left side of the road as the other sprinters switched to the right. It was a long way around but he was protected from  side wind blowing off the sea and had the speed to hit the line first. “It was a bit more difficult to win today because the last lap was done at a crazy speed,” he added.

“It’s usually hard for me to win high-speed sprints like this but Bennati sacrificed his chances to help me and I can only thank him. Team Sky was on the front down the back straight doing 60kpm, but after the last roundabout at the bottom of the circuit, we got back to near the front.”

“I stayed on the left because it was sheltered from the wind. I took a risk by doing that but everyone else went to the right to take the shortest line. I took the long way round and got it. I hit 74kpm, that’s how fast the sprint was,” Mol said.

The closing stage of the event was a short one, only 123.5km, which ended with seven laps of a six km circuit in Doha. The race was dominated by a fourrider escape group. Patrick Gretsch of HTC-Columbia, Martin Kohler of BMC, Niki Terpstra of Milram and Australian Ben King of Trek- Livestrong got away after only 2.5km into the stage.

However, their lead was never more than five minutes and the bunch chased them as the circuits counted down. The quartet entered the final lap with only a 17-second lead, as the sprinters’ teams were determined to take another one.

Writer : Sonia Azad