Qatar: Haussler by a Hair!

Much calmer day ends in a bunch sprint. Heinrich Haussler was just edged to the line yesterday by Tom Boonen. Today, it was time for him to turn the tables, except on Daniele Bennati. Haussler brought himself next to the barriers and opened up to just beat Bennati to the line and deny his Leopard-Trek team of the win.

Especially since they did most of the work. Haussler himself said that the run in to the finish was easy for him, as he sat on Bennati's wheel while Leopard-Trek did most of the heavy lifting for their Italian sprinter. He attacked to the outside, but the finish line was actually quite narrow.

He did not look very happy with Bennati after the race, but soon forgot his displeasure when he was standing on the stage celebrating his stage win.

He also closed the gap between himself and Tom Boonen (who finished 6th) down to just a second thanks to the time bonus he picked up for the victory.

But the strangest thing about this sprint was who wasn't there...

The usually unstoppable team of Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw managed just 12th and 14th respectively. They were trapped in the narrow finishing stretch and just couldn't get open.

But that does bring up an interesting question regarding the situation of Mark Renshaw this week. Sitting in 3rd place and just 4 seconds behind, his GC hopes are very much alive if he can grab a sprint bonus or 2 at the finishes.

But he can't do that if he is leading out for Cav.

Quite the dilemma facing them and the rest of the HTC team. Cavendish has been banged up again this week and probably isn't on his best form because of it and the team might actually be better off if the two were to switch places and Renshaw sprint for both the stage and the GC. But, since I'm not a directeur, I'll leave that decision up to the guys who get paid for it.

The peloton had nearly no wind trouble today, and made a near perfect catch on a rather strong breakaway. That is when the sprint teams (especially Leopard-Trek) moved to the front and strung out the peloton.

But it was a Garmin rider today. Wow, that team is on a roll. Overall victory and a stage at TDU, 2 events in Mallorca so far, and now a stage in Qatar. Now that's depth...
Stage Results
1. Heinrich Haussler
2. Daniele Bennati
3. Denis Galimzyanov

General Classification
1. Tom Boonen
2. Heinrich Haussler -1
3. Mark Renshaw -4
4. Fabian Cancellara -8
5. Juan Antonio Flecha -9
6. Daniele Bennati -10
7. Andreas Klier -16
8. Gert Steegmans -17
9. Jeremy Hunt -19
10. Dominique Rollin -19
11. Gabriel Rasch -20
12. Stuart O'Grady -20
13. Roger Hammond -21
14. Marcus Burghardt -28
15. Bernhard Eisel -40
16. Graeme Brown -46
17. Nicolas Maes -53
18. Johan Van Summeren -58

Points
Heinrich Haussler (28)

Young Rider
Nicolas Maes

Teams
Leopard-Trek