Elérkezett az utolsó nap is, sokak számára a Nagy Nap. Nagyon hosszú versenyre volt kilátás, és azt leszámítva, hogy valószínűleg mezőnyhajrá lesz, senki nem tudta, mire számítson a katari körülmények között. Eddig még nem publikált képeink, a verseny rövid videója és természetesen a dobogósok nyilatkozatai összefoglalják az elit férfiak mezőnyversenyét.
A verseny nagyjából 75 kilométer elteltével dőlt el, legalábbis abból a szempontból, hogy kinek maradt esélye a győzelemre és kinek biztosan nem. Történt ugyanis, hogy a mezőny Dohából indulva északra indult a sivatagba, majd megfordult, és visszatért a városba, egészen pontosan a Pearl nevű városzrészbe, ahol az összes többi verseny is zajlott. Nos, ezen a Dohába visszavezető úton a belgák elemükben voltak: a nagy szélben azt csinálták, amihez a legjobban értenek, azaz gyorsan szétrántották a sort, és hipp-hopp 3 részre szakadt a mezőny.
A belgák hat emberrel voltak elöl, a britek, a norvégok, az olaszok és a szlovákok is 3 fővel odafértek még. Kimaradtak a németek és a franciák, és bár volt egy kis üldözőverseny, csakhamar nyilvánvalóvá vált, nem lesz felérés, a győztes az első bolyból kerül majd ki.
Aztán eltelt sok-sok kilométer és elfogyott mérhetetlen mennyiségű kulacs, és elérkeztünk a mezőnyhajrához, mivel senki nem tudott ellépni. Boonen indított, de kicsit talán korán, hiszen lekerülte Cavendish is, de még nála is gyorsabb volt a Nizzolo kerekéről indító Peter Sagan, aki győzni tudott. Ezzel megvédte világbajnoki címét – fun fact, Paolo Bettini 2006-2007-es produkciója óta először látunk ilyet.
“OK it’s hot here, you suffer by that. You go training, it’s hot. I did already a lot this season. I thought, OK I’m gonna try train at home in Monaco and there’s also hot, not like this, but I could train five hours and relax. If you train here five-six hours you just finish yourself. When I came here the first day I was sleeping all day, and then I did three hours and I was already like it’s too much. And then the other day I did just one hour and today is the big day and it was a big day for me.
I think it was just one luck, there is no climb here. If you put cold water on yourself and then on the wheel you stay good. Of course for the Belgians and the Italians it was different. In the end nobody had too much energy to attack and making the race, because everybody was too hot. First of all I am very happy, I was the last rider (to jump) in the first group, with the Belgian guys and the Italian guys. That was the first victory of the day and I just kept riding with them. Then maybe the German team came back from behind, but after that the Belgians with the Italians pulled very strong, and in the end I thought we will go for the sprint for sure. It was like a lottery.
I started the sprint from the right side and was very lucky they did not close me, because it was very tight on the right side. Maybe it was destiny, because it’s not every day that I can win a sprint like this. It’s not easy, never the victory can be easy. It’s very difficult. I already said in Flanders and last year a lot of things have to come together to make things possible, a lot of luck but also good shape. Today if there would have been a lot climbs, I would not have been here. It’s not easy, I’m very happy with what I do and did in my career until now, and we will see what’s going to happen in future.”
“I was second in that corner where it split behind Luke Rowe. Actually it wasn’t only Adam (Blythe) and me (in the first echelon), but also Luke Row, but he unfortunately punctured. With the team, with the head wind, we controlled it. For us it did not matter whether it was a big group, I can win from both, so we knew we had to be there, so that we did not have to pull behind and we did not age to pull up front.
I was just behind a wall of riders. I was on Sagan’s wheel. I saw in other races if you got on the right-hand side, you got squashed on the right-hand side, so I wanted to go back. I tried to find a way, I had to really just stop pedalling to come on the other side of Michael Matthews, and this was with less than a hundred metres to go, so it was too late to come back. I managed to come back on Tom Boonen, but not on Sagan. It’s frustrating because, when I’m not good enough and when it’s physically not my speed and I haven’t got it, that was not today. I saw that I was faster than the others in the final. Yeah I made a mistake, and that’s going to eat at me for a long time.”
“We took responsibility. We did what we planned, to make the race hard from 75 kilometres to 125 and then the lock went on the race for hundred kilometres. The race was too long, for spectators and everyone. But I was happy with the result in the end. We actually came one guy short. The way the sprint went, I think we did maximum.
Every attack in the race influences the result. The result of the race is the sum of every at you. Tom (Leezer) did a great effort. He’s a young guy and nobody really expected it. Jurgen (Roelandts) came in the lead way to early. We had to go full from 800 metres, and then I had to wait for the other guys to get passed me and start sprinting again. And then it’s very hard.”
A dohai világbajnokságon való részvételünket a Mesterbike segített megvalósítani.
