Tour of Qatar Stage 3

With Stage 3 staying close to the eastern coastline for much of its 93.5km, teams expected yet more crosswinds today and were entirely correct in doing so: the bunch was split up early on once again as riders battled to make progress - Chloe Hosking (Hitec Products) later described it as "seriously one of the hardest races I have done." A group of 28, including all those who went into the race with a reasonable chance of winning, got away and led for most of the day.

In the final kilometres the lead group had been whittled down to a dozen, and as the finish drew near it looked as though Lizzie Armitstead (Boels-Dolmans), who is the only British rider in the race, would also be the only rider able to challenge the mighty Kirsten Wild, despite the Dutch rider's Giant-Shimano squad having kept tight reins on the race all the way. However, Wild's famously powerful sprint proved too much and she had little difficulty in retaining her lead across the finish line to win a third stage for the team. Armitstead was right behind her, taking second place and an identical time, while Hosking was third.

Following bonification, Wild takes back the overall lead from team mate Amy Pieters (winner of Stage 2) and now has an advantage of 9" - and seems a safe bet for anyone wanting to predict tomorrow's results, too.


Stage 3 Top Ten
1 Kirsten WILD (Giant-Shimano) 2h27'34"
2 Elizabeth ARMITSTEAD (Boels-Dolmans) ST
3 Chloe HOSKING (Hitec Products) ST
4 Shelley OLDS (Ale-Cipollini) ST
5 Emma JOHANSSON (Orica-AIS) ST
6 Barbara GUARISCHI (Ale-Cipollini) ST
7 Trixi WORRACK (Specialized-Lululemon) ST
8 Elena CECCHINI (Italy NT) ST
9 Amy PIETERS (Giant-Shimano) ST
10 Loes GUNNEWIJK (Orica-AIS) ST
Full result: stage / GC

British hope at the Tour of Qatar

Somewhat surprisingly, considering the enormous upsurge in interest in women's cycling in Britain and the number of world-class athletes from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland making their mark on the cycling scene in recent years, British hopes for a Tour of Qatar victory rest on the shoulders of just one rider - even the British-registered team Wiggle-Honda will compete without a Brit.

Armitstead is the only British rider at this
year's Tour of Qatar

However, as that one rider is Lizzie Armitstead, who is currently ranked 17th among Elite Women worldwide by the UCI, there's still a very good chance of a British victory - not least of all because Qatar is made up of the sort of windy, flat stages that usually result in bunch sprints which suit a rider equipped with Armitstead's super-fast sprint abilities (she was, after all, second to Marianne Vos as the 2012 Olympics - and Vos is popularly acclaimed as the greatest rider of her generation), and because she has a strong Boels-Dolmans squad made up of Romy Kasper, Christine Majerus, Katerzyna Pawlowska and Marieke Van Wanroij backing her up.

If the gold General Classification jersey seems out of reach, Armitstead could instead aim for the silver Points competition jersey - a stage win combined with good performances in the intermediate sprints would put her in with a good chance at this. However, with no climbs anywhere in the race, all the teams will be sending the best sprinters they have and she'll face stiff competition for each and every point.


The race covers 388km split into four stages, some of them familiar from previous editions of the Tour.


Stage 1, extending for 97km, is a carbon copy of 2013's Stage 1 which was won by Australian Chloe Hosking of Hitec Products-UCK. Hosking has been one of the finest sprinters in the world for a few years now and has continued to improve; racing for Hitec again this year, she'll be one of Armitstead's strongest rivals for stage victory and the overall General Classification.

The riders will cross the finish line twice, first after 35.5km from the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and then again at the end of the race 61.5km later. When they do so for the first time they'll enter the first of two intermediate sprints; the second intermediate sprint on the desert road heading east to Al Wakra.

Stage 2 starts at Al Zubara, a ruined city with a fort that looks medieval but in fact dates from 1938. Heading north-east along exposed coastal roads, the riders can expect very powerful crosswinds all the way to their first arrival at Al Ruwais. This may split the peloton, but it's unlikely that we'll see breakaways here as riders will concentrate on forming echelons for shelter.

At Al Ruwais, they'll turn and ride almost all the way across the country to Athba; since they'll now be heading away from the east coast, a strong tail wind could make this a very fast section of the stage and once again prevent breakaways. After a short stretch north to Al Gariyah, they turn west and begin riding back to Al Ruwais, this time battling a headwind. Having crossed the finish line for the first time they'll begin four laps around Madinat Al Shamal with intermediate sprints the second and fourth times they cross the line before finishing on the fifth after 112.3km.

Stage 2 in 2012 started and ended at the same points, but followed a different parcours that led east across the desert rather than north along the coast, making it an entirely different sort of race. Trixi Worrack won that day; she's back leading the Specialized-Lululemon team this year, but with the changes to the route it's impossible to say whether she has more chance at winning than her rivals this year - and since victory is likely to go to a rider able to generate a sprint-winning high wattage after fighting the wind for so much of the way, Armitstead seems to have odds as good as anyone else.

Stage 3 runs for 93.5km from Katara Cultural Village at Doha just a short distance from the famous Pearl to Al Khor Corniches and then north into the desert before returning to Al Khor Corniche - remaining near to the eastern coast, it's likely to subject the riders to crosswinds which may blow in off the sea to the east or straight across the flat landscape from the west.

Once again, there are two intermediate sprints. The first is at Tenbek, 45km into the race and roughly two thirds of the way to Al Khor Corniche, while the second is 44.5km later at Al Thakira, 8.5km from the finish.


Stage 4 will also feel familiar to riders who competed last year, because it's the same as the final stage from 2013 - though it's listed as being 85km instead of 86.5km this time around, for some reason. Then, unusually for Qatar, the wind dropped and completely changed the character if the race, encouraging fierce breakaways and attacks as Hitec fought to get Hosking into a position to take on race leader and eventual victor Kirsten Wild who is back with her Giant-Shimano team this year - and who will be a very powerful opponent to Armitstead and anyone else hoping to win.

Starting at the Sealine Beach Resort, the parcours heads north via Mesaieed and Al Wakra (site of the first intermediate sprint, 38.5km from the start) to Doha; never venturing more than a few kilometres from the east coast it's likely that the riders will have to contend with crosswinds, unless the weather does something unexpected again. Once at Doha they'll compete five laps of the fast city circuit with the second intermediate sprint at the fourth crossing of the finish line, 11.5km from the end of the race.

Further information
The official race website is here and daily results will be published by the UCI. Team rosters: Ale Cipollini / Australia National Team / Astana-BePink / Boels-Dolmans / China Chong Ming / France National Team / Hitec Products / Italy National Team / Lotto-Belisol / Orica-AIS / Rabo-Liv/Giant / RusVelo / Specialized-Lululemon / Giant-Shimano / Wiggle-Honda.

Armitstead on the issues facing women's cycling

Lizzie Armitstead

In an interview with Cycling News, Olympic silver medalist Lizzie Armitstead has hit out at "sexism and inequality" in cycling. That inequality exists is beyond doubt - it's common knowledge that many women even at the top level receive no salary at all while their male counterparts are paid a guaranteed minimum wage and the prizes awarded to race winners in women's cycling are, quite frankly, laughable compared to those in the majority of men's races. Many people will say that Armitstead is wrong in linking this to sexism and insist it's due to the harsh realities faced by the sport resulting from the simple fact that there is far less money in women's cycling. However, what the article doesn't make immediately clear is that she isn't saying that race organisers and UCI officials are overtly sexist (some of them may well be sexist, of course, but few of them would allow themselves to be seen as such) - she's saying that women's cycling's problems stem from a more deeply-rooted sexism, a belief in society that athletic competition between females can never be as exciting as athletic competition between men, and that the resulting smaller audience is why women's cycling doesn't get the attention it deserves. This  is a point of view that may not necessarily be correct; but it's a valid one shared by many and the UCI, as the body responsible for developing competitive cycling, has a duty to explore it.

Armitstead believes that one possible solution would be "forcing ProTour teams to have a women's team." That is certainly an option, and seems a good one at first - many people also support the idea of forcing race organisers to hold women's races alongside their men's events. But would it work? Would teams devote the time, money and media to their female riders as they do to their men?

When whether Team Sky should sponsor a women's team, Armitstead hits the nail on the head - "I think Team Sky is missing an opportunity," she says. That is the real answer: persuading, rather than forcing, teams that it is in their interest to have a women's team. That way, they'll give them the backing they deserve. Force them to run women's teams and they'll do so resentfully, fielding athletes who have been given the cheapest minimum of coaching, riding bikes that are only a fraction of the value and quality that the men on the team ride. Result: in the eyes of the public, who in many cases will not understand the underlying issues, female cyclists appear less talented and less competitive than the men. Sky have had plenty of opportunity to put together a women's team and have a budget more than high enough to run several; it seems clear, therefore, that they have no interest in doing so (note that they do sponsor female track cyclists - who enjoy a higher public profile than female road cyclists).

So, how can they be persuaded that women's teams will bring them more glory and, crucially, more sponsors? The riders themselves are already doing all they can - they ride to their limits, even if they've had to work a forty-hour week in order to be able to afford to be at the races in which they compete, and they raise the issues facing their sport whenever they can, just as Armitstead is doing. There are a few team officials and managers doing a superb job too - Stefan Wyman, owner of Britain's Matrix-Prendas, is a glowing example and has recently written a series of informative articles on the subject (the latest of which can be found here); so to is Karl Lima, manager of the Hitec Products-Mistral Home - both have fought for many years to get a fair deal for the athletes on their own teams and in women's cycling in general. Rabobank is another admirable case and provides excellent support for its highly successful women's team.

"The race with the Dutch girl and the English girl" -
Armitstead and Vos follow Olga Zabelinskaya

It seems, then, that it's up to fans. We can do a very great deal to save and improve the sport we love, especially right now - it's notable that people who have previously had no interest in cycling at all suddenly know the names Marianne Vos and Lizzie Armitstead because of the Women's Road Race at the Olympics (or at the very least are talking about "the race with the Dutch girl and the English girl" - hey, it's a start). We can help to make sure they keep talking about it - all we need to do is tell anyone who will listen why women's cycling is as great and as fascinating a sport as it is, write blogs about it, Tweet anything we find about it, share our knowledge and enthusiasm, go to races and encourage others to do so too. That way, we pass on the love to new fans and increase the audience, which in turn makes women's cycling far more tempting to potential sponsors - and it's their money that will persuade the teams and race organisers to make space for the women.

Weekend News Roundup

Lizzie Armitstead
(image credit: johnthescone CC BY 2.0)

23-year-old British star Lizzie Armitstead, one of several riders to have joined AA Drink-Leontien.nl following the demise of the Garmin-Cervelo Women's Team, scored a major victory with first place at the Omloop het van Hageland today after breaking away from the peloton in the latter part of the race accompanied by Hitec Products-Mistral Home's Elisa Longo-Borghini and Rabobank's Pauline Ferrand-Prevot. In the final sprint, she demonstrated the sheer power that has seen her as respected in the women's peloton as Cavendish is in the men's, beating Ferrabd-Prevot by 2" and Longo-Borghini by 4". Lucy Martin, also riding with AA Drink, took ninth place, Emma Silversides of Sengers was the next best Brit in 47th.


It wasn't all great from a British point of view, however: Emma Trott, riding with Dolmans-Boels this season, crashed and broke her collar bone. The 22-year-old announced her misfortune via Twitter...

@EmmaTrott1989
Shit happens, 2nd race and I end in hospital with broken collarbone! Fantastic!

Best wishes for a very speedy recovery, Emma.



Having already enjoyed a successful career in rugby (she played with the national women's team) and bobsleigh (she won an Olympic gold medal), Canada's Heather Moyse decided it was time to go looking for another sport - and chose track cycling. This weekend, she represented her nation at the PanAmerican Championships in Argentina, where she competed in the 500m TT and Sprint. (Vancouver Sun)

Emma Johansson made her return to racing at the Omloop het van Hageland, having recovered from twin broken collar bones sustained in a training ride accident back in January. She finished in 27th place - no surprise to the Swedish rider, who seems happy just to be back, but expect a rapid return to race-winning form.

Slipstream merges with AA Drink-Leontien nl.

It's been the subject of rumour for a day or two, but the news is now confirmed - the Slipstream Women's Team is to merge with AA Drink, the team that provided a new home for several riders when Garmin-Cervélo manager Jonathan Vaughters announced the loss of a sponsor last year. The team will be run by AA-Drinks and administered by Slipstream with all riders competing on Cervélo bikes.

Garmin was contractually obliged to continue paying the salaries of nine of its ex-riders, meaning that a merger was the obvious and most practical way ahead for all parties. With many teams hitting rough patches in 2011 the merger comes as extremely welcome news in the women's cycling world.

Vaughters said: "We are pleased to partner with AA Drink / Leontien.nl. Michael Zilaard has built a strong organization and we are excited to work with him to combine our strengths. The 2012 team looks strong and we believe it will be a great year ahead."

Emma Pooley

Press release here.

Team:

Elizabeth Armitstead (UK)
Chantal Blaak (NL)
Lucinda Brand (NL)
Jessie Daams (BEL)
Sharon Laws (UK)
Lucy Martin (UK)
Shelley Olds (USA)
Madelene Olsson (SWE)
Emma Pooley (UK)
Carla Ryan (AUS)
Isabelle Söderberg (SWE)
Marijn de Vries (NL)
Marieke van Wanroij (NL)
Kirsten Wild (NL)