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Strong day for the TestTeam in Qatar

February 08, 2010 - Filed under: TestTeam

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All expectations for the Tour of Qatar were turned upside down in stage 2, as the difficult stage brought some surprising results. Geert Steurs (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) and Wouter Mol (Vacansoleil) attacked early, pulled far ahead of the peloton - at one point holding a 23 minute lead - and managed to hold on through the finish. Steurs took the stage win and Mol took the overall lead in the race.

"After the situation from yesterday we didn't have to do anything" said Sports Director Jens Zemke. "But after 40 km, we had a strong side wind and we brought our riders to the front and bowed up the bunch. After that we were part of a group of twenty riders, six of whom were from TestTeam. Only Theo Bos lost the group, though he finished the race in the second chase group with team mates Davide Appollonio and Gabriel Rasch. Heinrich Haussler, Jeremy Hunt, Andreas Klier, Martin Reimer and Roger Hammond rode the final in the first group and attempted to attack in the final stretch for third place."

With 5 km to go, Roger Hammond launched an attack and Tom Boonen (Quick-Step) tried to follow, but that attack was but quickly pulled back to the group and followed by another attack in the chase group by Heinrich Haussler. Haussler was also pulled back before Roger Kluge (Team Milram) attacked with 200 meter to the finish line, crossing the line in third position. Heinrich Haussler and Philippe Gilbert rounded out the top 5. The rest of the peloton crossed the line in small groups - evidence of the difficulty of the stage.