UPDATED ON:
Friday, February 02, 2007
18:08 Mecca time, 15:08 GMT
Sport
Cretskens wins Tour of Qatar

Quick Step, with Cretskens, gold jersey, and Boonen, silver jersey, dominated the Tour of Qatar [AFP]

Belgian rider Wilfried Cretskens won the sixth Tour of Qatar after the 134km sixth and final stage concluded on Doha's waterfront corniche on Friday.
 
Cretskens was the overall winner, securing his first ever tour victory, even though his Quick Step teammate and Belgian compatriot Tom Boonen won five out of the six stages around the Gulf state.
The 33 year-old Cretskens took the leader's jersey after the penultimate stage when Boonen, the Tour of Qatar defending champion, suffered a puncture on the longest stage of the race from Al Zubarah to Mesaieed.
Cretskens maintained his lead of more than two minutes on the final stage as the Quick Step team dominated the week of cycling.

Friday's stage saw a breakaway after just 15km by Kenny De Haes of Belgium, Denmark’s Glenn Bak and Frenchman Emilien-Benoit Berges, who built up a seven and a half minute lead.

However the peloton worked hard and caught the leaders with 10km to ride on Doha's picturesque corniche, setting the race up for an exciting sprint finish.

Sprint king Boonen yet again pipped his great Italian rival Alessandro Petacchi, who sneaked home in second place ahead of Australian Graeme Brown.

Cretskens didn't need to sprint to the finish as he had done enough to keep the race leader's gold jersey, 2:09min ahead of Boonen who was second overall, with Dutchman Steve De Jongh in third a further 35sec behind

 Source: Agencies
 
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