DOHA: Algerian rider Azzedine Lagab yesterday grabbed stage one of the Tour of Zubarah with a slick finish in Dukhan.
The 28-year-old topped the 120.1km stage - that began in Madina Al Shamal - ahead of Kristjan Fajt and grabbed the yellow jersey.
In third place yesterday was Algeria’s Abderrahmane Mansouri.
Lagab’s clocked a time of 2 hours 45 minutes and 19 seconds. Fajt finished with the same while Mansouri was 37 seconds slower than the day’s winner.
Fajt said: “I hope I can continue with my rhythm tomorrow also. All the time I was close to winning the stage but it slipped in the last few meters.”
Wednesday’s blue jersey winner David Per of Slovenia was fifth, a notch above Austria’s Martin Weiss. Dutchman Wauter Sybrandy was placed seventh while Austria’s Mario Schoibl secured the eighth spot. Yellow jersey winner on Thursday Roman Van Uden of New Zealand ended the day in ninth spot while Croatia’s Radoslav Rogina of team Adria Mobil rounded off the top-10 riders yesterday.
Lagab now heads the overall classification with a time of 2:50.29, some 19 seconds better than Fajt.
Van Uden is in third spot, some 30 seconds adrift of Lagab. Defending champion UAE’s Yusif Mirza yesterday finished 14th to drop down the pecking order.
Qatari riders haven’t done well in the two days, going down the points table following indifferent performances. Abdullah Afifi is in 32nd spot after two days in the individual classification after stage one. Diego Hossfledt is in 39th spot whereas his team-mate Moosa Said is in 47th place.
Qatar coach Branko Fillip said: “There are very strong riders here. I am missing Ahmed Al Boudainy. He broke his leg in training. We are missing our best rider.”
Fillip added: “I hope the ones present here make a better result than today. But we’ll see. Ahmed is out for four weeks. We wanted to target the first five in general classification. But without him, it seems it would be difficult. We will do our best. We are trying. We have only five riders here. But this is it. We have to compete. We have to fight.”
Per still holds the blue jersey after two days of competition. THE PENINSULA
