Key moments

After claiming last year’s first ever team time-trial of the Tour of Qatar, the Belgian squad did it again for the first stage of this 2008 edition. Tom Boonen and his team mates proved to be the fastest on the 6 kilometre course staged on Doha’s corniche beating the Slipstream Chipotle team by 3 seconds. First on the finish line of the Quick Step team, Matteo Tosatto becomes the first overall leader of the 2008 Tour of Qatar.

Led by the last two winners of the Tour of Qatar, Wilfried Cretskens and Tom Boonen, the Quick Step team again conquered the opening team time-trial competed in excellent weather conditions on Doha’s very long Corniche.
In 6min35, the Belgian squad mamged the reference time in, at an average speed of 54,683 km/h on the 6 kilometre course.
For its season opening race and its first appearance in Qatar, the Slipstream Chipotle team, that had led the day’s race for quite some time, finally had to settle for second spot, two seconds adrift.
The Skill Shimano riders captured a rather good third position, five seconds off the winning pace.
First of the Quick Step boys on the finish line, Italian Matteo Tosatto, a Tour de France stage winner back in 2006 (in Macon) claims the first golden jersey of the event and leads the overall ahead of Cretskens and De Jongh.
The first blue jersey for the best young rider goes to Australia’s Christopher Sutton (TSL).

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"It’s a nice way of starting the year. It’s our team’s first race and the first one for Tom (Boonen). We’re happy because we win for our first outing. Last year we won this team time-trial and we repeat our performance. It’s an important success because there have been a lot of stories that have nothing to do with cycling. We went for a training camp in Spain just before arriving here in Qatar and we prove that we’ve worked well over there.
It’s clear that our race leader is Tom (Boonen). We’ll see what happens for tomorrow’s stage. The most important was to start well this Tour of Qatar."

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