Greig Leach

Quite a few big name riders (and team for that matter) got caught out when the echelons formed in the cross winds of the open desert. The entire American and German teams were left behind to try and chase down the leading thirty riders. In his post race interview, Peter Sagan (Slovakia) said he just managed to scramble across to the leaders as the gap started to open up. John Degenkolb (German) and his teammate Andre Greipel, drove hard on the front of the second group, but were unable to close the gap in the strong, sand filled crosswinds. Two members of the Belgium team were trying to disrupt the organization of the chase in hopes that the rest of their team would be able to run away with the race on the way back to Doha. For the record, the groups never did come back together, nor did the various smaller chasing groups behind ever catch this group.