Stage 1 – Doha – Doha, 6km
Happy 2008 to everyone! I hope everyone has had a great couple of months. It is finally that time! Cycling has begun to swing back into action. For Team Slipstream p/b Chipotle, the 2008 season began today with the Tour of Qatar. Slipstream-Chipotle brought some of their best talent to Qatar: David Millar, Magnus Backstedt, Julian Dean, Huub Duyn, Christophe Laurent, Martyn Maaskant, Kilian Patour, and Christopher Sutton.
The team started this race and the season with a great finish in today’s Team Time Trial around Doha. Up against great ProTour teams such as Credit Agricole, Quick-Step, Lampre, and Silence-Lotto, the boys finished a strong and convincing 2nd behind Quick-Step by a margin of 0.02! As this was a Team Time Trial, 5 of the 8 riders all finished with the same time and ranked between 7 and 12. Below are the individual standings of each rider.
7 Christopher Sutton
8 David Millar
9 Martyn Maaskant
10 Huub Duyn
11 Julian Dean
83 Magnus Backstedt
128 Christophe Laurent
130 Kilian Patour
Tomorrow, Stage 2 will take the field 137.5 km from Al Zubarah to the Doha Golf Club and offer several sprints. Keep an eye out for the Slipstream boys!